The most expensive coffee in the world comes out of an animal's butt

Sorry for all the posts related to coffee (been obsessed with it lately), but I just found out that the most expensive coffee in the world comes out of the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (pictured left).

They eat the coffee cherries, of which the coffee beans pass through unharmed and are collected from the floor of the Sumatran jungles, and poof! you have Kopi Luwak. Kopi is Indonesian for coffee and Luwak is the local name for the civet.

Apparently (according to Wikipedia), Kopi Luwak ranges from $120 to $600 per pound. A quick search shows that a pound of Arabica roast on Animalcoffe.com is $180. Yowsers!

So why does it taste so good? The civet has evolved to pick out the ripest and best beans for consumption, and also, according to this article, the acids in the civet's stomach breaks down and leaches out some of the protein (proteins are what makes coffee bitter during the roasting process).

Mike the knife sharpener

While walking on Adelphi Street in Brooklyn this weekend, I heard a clanging. I turned around and spotted (my first time!) the green truck. It was Mike the knife sharpener! I had heard about a guy who drove around banging on bell, and people running down from their apartments with knives and scissors to be sharpened.

Apparently, according to reviews on Chowhound, a few people have had bad experiences with Mike's. I was too far away from our house to have him sharpen any of our knives. Have any of you had your knives sharpened by Mike?

Here is an article about Mike published in the New York Times two years ago.