Inspired by Zeke’s Coffee roaster and taste maker Thomas Rhodes, every Friday morning a group of Lauraville locals drop by for a cup and a round table of neighborhood chatter and conviviality. The Maryland Crab Cake Tour plopped down for a morning edition with local pundit Dan Rodricks, cartoonist Ricig and coffee and democracy chatter over breakfast.
Nestor Aparicio and Mike Ricigliano discuss the origins of their Friday morning coffee gathering at Zeke’s in Lauraville, which has been ongoing for about 30 years. The group, including regulars like Dave Pugh and Bob Kleinschmidt, meets to socialize and discuss various topics. They also touch on the unique process of making Kopi Luwak coffee, which involves the Asian Palm Civet digesting coffee cherries, resulting in a smooth, expensive brew. Additionally, Nestor shares a personal anecdote about discovering and enjoying wild wine berries, which are similar to blueberries but harder to find due to wildlife consumption.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
coffee gathering, Baltimore positive, neighborhood friends, Friday coffee, pandemic impact, socialist, great good places, community hub, Kopi Luwak, coffee fermentation, wine berries, local connections, radio show, Maryland lottery, democracy discussion
SPEAKERS
8
Nestor Aparicio, Mike Ricigliano, Speaker 1, Thomas Rhodes, Dan Rodricks
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 tasks in Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. I’m positively here at Zeke’s. I’ve lost control. We’re seeing is supposed to be the co host to the program was, I didn’t even know that I been here the whole time. I mean, kind of, sort of, I was enjoying my peeps. You know you’re well, what happens here every week, there’s something Thomas does this like in the middle Rogers has gotten in the middle of it. These people think that the Baltimore stickers are my stickers and they’re his
Mike Ricigliano 00:29
stickers. Just a great gathering place for friends and all are welcome. Thomas and Dave do a great job. Have done a great job of organized Dave Pugh have done a great job of organizing this group. It varies all the time. Pew here, he’s not he’s on vacation. His son is here, and actually Bob Klein Schmidt and Bob his partners,
Nestor Aparicio 00:50
Well, Dan, you’re wondering what the hell we’re doing here. What happened was racing and I met each other 40 years ago, and I started doing radio 35 years ago, and he either listened to participate. So when I came to his neighborhood four years ago with Cocos, I said, I need a co host with a K and so we’re sick, started doing that down the street. And then he’s like, Hey, let’s get Thomas Rhodes. And I’m like, I know him and Marcellus, if I serve his coffee, and like, let’s get Thomas down. He’s in the neighborhood. It’s good for the neighborhood. So he comes down. He comes down, and there’s little animals that poop out neck beads, right? Beans, right, you know, but the bean pooping, COVID, yeah, yeah, you know about that, right? Sumatra
8Dan Rodricks 01:25
is Sumatra.
Thomas Rhodes 01:26
There’s Vietnamese versions, but they force feed it there, I
Dan Rodricks 01:29
think, Oh, really.
Nestor Aparicio 01:30
8So a year ago, we all get together. We’re like, let’s do the show cut. And they’re like, well, the show this that Friday, Friday morning, come have coffee. We all get together. So I came by and my Earl Campbell Jersey, and I met her and her and him and him, and next thing I know, they have a Friday morning coffee thing. I’m so I should do the show here. So this was all inspired by how long you been doing the coffee thing? Tom, oh God,
Dan Rodricks 01:53
30 years. Is it?
Thomas Rhodes 01:56
It’s, yeah, 1990s longer. Yeah, about 30 years. Yeah.
Nestor Aparicio 01:59
Well, I mean, you gave me a cup of dark roast decaf here, so Lord knows that I need that. You
8Mike Ricigliano 02:05
know, you know who else is here regularly, and Dan knows him too. Is Nick the Greek. Nick seropolis is a regular here. He’s really He’s just watching grandkids today.
Nestor Aparicio 02:15
Why did the Friday thing start here? I mean, this is like a Fonzie. You guys made it. Both of you made it a big deal to me. You post pictures. Everybody’s pose for a big picture. This is every week. This is a little club a neighborhood we
Thomas Rhodes 02:27
we started before the pandemic, myself, Dave Hugh and Bob Kleinschmidt, and we would just meet every Thursday. And then the pandemic hit, and it sort of ruined everybody’s schedule. So,
Nestor Aparicio 02:39
8right? Born of friendship, born of just, yeah, come on out. Well, I
Thomas Rhodes 02:42
mean, Dave and Bob are customers of mine. That’s how I met them. Okay? And, you know, just be an owner of the cafe, you want to sit around and grab something available, grab hands. And so we start. And then, you know, once the pandemic started winding down, we were talking about it, and Thursday wasn’t available. So they said, Friday, I’m like, perfect. And you have this great table from New York City Public Library that I got from my friend. And we just,
Nestor Aparicio 03:11
it’s a command center. It is a little bit of that we did. You walked in on this, man. I mean, this is a thing every Friday they do here. The Socialist
Dan Rodricks 03:17
Ray Oldenburg would refer to this place as a great, good place, not because, not because the food’s good or the coffee’s good, but he, but it is okay, but he, yes, but he would use that term to describe places that are not work, not home, where people gathered informally and did it. Used to do it on a regular basis, all the time, corner bars, corner benches, where people would just hang out. What playing, the playing, you know, game, chess, chess, or something like that. And, and this, this guy’s a social socialist, and I’m not a socialist, a social sociologist who said, you know, there’s not enough of that, and the age of the car, where people commute long distances that you know you don’t really casually go walk down the street and just meet your friends someplace, right? That’s he wrote about it in a sort of mournful way, that they were lacking that, and that teenagers, especially who grow up in isolated suburbs, don’t have those connections, easy connections to make with people. You have to, you have to, sort of like, Gather your friends and make an appointment to meet people,
8Nestor Aparicio 04:27
yeah, whereas my radio shows about, I mean, it gets me together with all of you.
Dan Rodricks 04:31
Yes, that’s good. But, you know, in city life, the thing, nice thing about city life is, you know, you can actually do this fairly quickly, fairly easily. And some places, just walking down the street, I go to the swallow at the hollow,
Speaker 1 04:45
because also a great place, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 04:47
8football, yeah, and baseball, snow storm. You got a place right when it snows, that’s Yeah, yeah. It’s a command center when it snows, right, yeah. Literally here, oh yeah, yeah. Every bar was like. Like that in town. And this goes to Springsteen, saying, you know, cold beer at a reasonable price, place where you can gather sit all day. This gentleman’s been here since I got here. He’s working on his computer having coffee. I mean, it’s really a it’s a hub, right? I mean, and that’s what a coffee shop supposed to be, right?
Mike Ricigliano 05:15
So this group, this group gathers eight to 10, usually on Fridays, but there is one day that they call the Zika THON, which is an all day so, November, right? December or so, where it’s an all day thing, where they go eight to five at night or six Joe. Joe has done the whole thing. Yeah, talk to when
Nestor Aparicio 05:34
does he go to decaf? When does she go to decaf? Right? Just checking it out,
Thomas Rhodes 05:40
right? But they sit here from open to close,
8Speaker 1 05:42
yes, on this at the Zika THON, yeah.
Nestor Aparicio 05:44
Well, I appreciate you coming on the program and take a little time out of the kitchen here and hosting us. You’re taking time. I’m pulling you away from your table, your thing, sort of, this is your your Friday afternoon thing, so morning, I’ll get you back. But thanks for having us out. Give us great food. Give us great coffee. You want to tell them about the thing that poops the beans are now we
Dan Rodricks 06:05
don’t know. I know, and nobody I thought it was. They might not know about it. This is
Nestor Aparicio 06:09
8civic so it’s a
Thomas Rhodes 06:10
palm service, yeah, right. It’s a Palm Civet. It’s a monkey, Liz, a monkey, weasel, squirrel. You’ve
Dan Rodricks 06:17
done the about it, yeah?
Thomas Rhodes 06:19
We had tastings, yeah, yeah, down the street and
8Dan Rodricks 06:22
yeah, they, they poop out. It’s not coffee beans. It’s, it is, I thought it was. So here’s, here’s what happens, like the seed of something. Well, coffee,
Nestor Aparicio 06:31
you love this part of the story.
Thomas Rhodes 06:33
Sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1 06:34
8is a seed fantastic. Anything scatological here we’re gonna
Nestor Aparicio 06:37
learn about coffee. So the
Thomas Rhodes 06:39
pumps, if it’s a nocturnal animal, so it’s blind, so when it goes out to eat at night, it sniffs the ripest cherry and eats it out of each little Oh, cherries. Coffee cherry, yeah. And then all coffee is fermented. 90 plus percent of it fermented in water for a couple hours, just to smooth it out. There’s another way to ferment it is to let the cherry meat rot in the sun on it. That’s another process. But the other very, very little of coffee is fermented in animal stomach, right, right? This one is the digestive juices that make it. It’s like the smoothest cup of coffee you’ll ever have. Yeah, because it was in the stomach, and
Dan Rodricks 07:21
yesterday you had the tasting, yeah? Years ago, yeah, I wrote him. I think I wrote about it, yeah, yeah, we can’t remember everything I write.
8Speaker 1 07:30
You written a lot.
Nestor Aparicio 07:33
I want to come because it’s such a novelty,
Thomas Rhodes 07:35
right? It is. It’s expensive novelty, but it’s, it’s worth the
Nestor Aparicio 07:39
8all novelties are expensive, the good ones, right? You
Thomas Rhodes 07:42
go to LA or New York and get yourself a shot of a Kobe Lux espresso, you’re gonna pay 100
Nestor Aparicio 07:47
bucks. And I’m like, Whoa, man, yeah, okay, better be pretty
Dan Rodricks 07:51
amazing having to go harvest those things. We
8Thomas Rhodes 07:54
it’s easy, actually, they is, but you gotta be, you have to have people, yeah, oddly enough, the Oompa Loompas picking up. They poop on a log. They just
Dan Rodricks 08:04
had this thing that. So it’s very, it’s very easy to find,
Thomas Rhodes 08:07
yeah, you know, it looks like a payday. It
Dan Rodricks 08:11
8looks like a payday. Looks like a payday. Candy, candy
Thomas Rhodes 08:13
bar. Yeah, it was, you know, it’s
Dan Rodricks 08:16
a good thing to know. Hey, people on Safari. And Sumatra and my son says, Hey, Dad, look, it’s a payday candy bars.
Thomas Rhodes 08:26
Well, you would be Safari and in a coffee orchard,
8Nestor Aparicio 08:30
because Dan’s an outdoor man. Dan is taking me fishing out Western Maryland. He doesn’t he’s not happy. We didn’t catch much or whatever. Outdoors man, you walk through the woods. My wife. Came back the other day after walking up through lock Raven with these berries. And they look like raspberries, but they’re purple. They’re called wine berries. Wine berries, no wine bear. They grow wild and they have around them like these prickly things are kind of hard, you know, cut yourself. Oh, I did, yeah. So then what happened? That is, right, that is exact what I’m asking you, like, about, right? I was the same way, and my wife’s like, no, no, I Googled it. Picture this that they’re delicious. She’s like, Cal up the street eats them. He goes out with his dog or whatever. So she put him on the table in a little bowl. And they’re beautiful. They look like little blackberries, okay? They look like tinier size of a raspberry. And she’s like, they’re a little tart. And I’m like, and they might be poisonous. They might be I don’t know. I’m thinking that, like Rogers. I’m like, What the hell are these? She’s like, they’re not poisonous, dude. I ate a couple yesterday, and I’m like, All right, so I looked at him for a day. I looked at him a second day. Third day, some fruit flies came. Fourth day, I’m looking at him. And then I looked outside, and we feed the squirrels, and it looked like an animal I didn’t recognize had pooped, and I looked at them. I’m like, that doesn’t look like raccoon poop, Fox poop. I don’t know what poop that is. I ordered. Coyote. She’s like, No, you damn berries that you didn’t eat. I put them out there for the raccoons, and it looked like it looked like a payday bar. So yesterday, two days ago, I come home and there’s berries again. She’s like, I picked you some more, and you should try it. I said, sneak it into my cereal tomorrow. See, two days ago, I had raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, which I do every day, all picked by immigrants, idiots, and I took a bite and I had a different flavor. It tasted like a blueberry, but like a Huckleberry. You ever had Huckleberry? If you’ve been out Montana or Idaho, everything out there is Huckleberry milkshake, Huckleberry, Huckleberry. Huckleberry tastes like blueberry, but a little different. Okay, a little different, but more like a blueberry. This thing was delicious. There were like, three or four in there, and every time I crunched on one, I’m like, I had milk in my mouth and cereal, and I’m like, I never had one. So here’s my point. This thing so good, yeah, he’s telling me it’s $100 a cup. I’m telling you, my wife walked through the woods find him. And I love berries, but the first thing I said about her berries is that’s gonna kill me. That’s gonna be poisonous. And as it turns out, I finally had a wine Berry 48 hours ago, and they are absolutely delicious. Still alive. She picked me more yesterday, and you’re still alive. What happens is, it’s like the monkeys or whatever they are eating the berries. Birds eat the ripe ones. So they’re really hard to find in the wild, because the birds will get to them first. So eat more wine berries when you’re out in the woods. Okay, that’s your lesson. Okay. Cow in here. He’s not going to draw his cartoons are black and white. I wouldn’t know a wine Barry from a blueberry if he didn’t point it out. So let him go. We’re going
Dan Rodricks 11:48
to Oh, here. He’s here. We’re going to
Nestor Aparicio 11:51
draw up democracy. We’re going to draw up democracy in the next segment. Thanks, Thomas, appreciate you, brother. Thank you for everything in the hospitality, the love, the coffee. We’re six here. Dance here. I’m here. We’re at Zeke’s. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery, the great cow, Kevin colliger, is coming in, and we’re going to, I’m going to eat my biscuit, and we’re going to talk about democracy and journalism and like important things. Stay with us. You.
