The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Tuesday, June 1

Hi, all!

That’s defender Esther Morgan at the top of the Hoddle today.

Ramble of the Day

Since the pandemic made us all local, I have built a habit over the last year and change of exploring the eateries around me. It made for a good use of the sanctioned outdoor activities — get a change of scenery, and feed the hunger or thirst that I’m naturally going to have. It’s a particularly fun activity in the New York area, and probably other places like it, because there are a ton of options. That, though, is not true for a cup of lemonade.

In my exploration of many eateries in New York, I have not run into a lot of lemonade. It does not make the menu at many smaller eateries around here, probably down to the fact that lemonade is easily classified as a seasonal drink. Finding high-quality lemonade is an even harder task. The lemon-water combination is often treated as a vessel for sugar, which does a disservice to a drink that could be a bit more complex. The most easily accessible lemonade is way more sugary than I’d like, but even less sugary lemonades elsewhere are frequently more sugary than they need to be.

Over this accidental year-long experiment, I did manage to find two places with genuinely great lemonade. The first is a local French bakery, whose lemonade has just a touch of sugar and does not sacrifice the lemon taste for it. (There is probably fun discourse to be had about lemon-based drinks around the world, but I’ll save that for a different time.) The other is actually a more commercial option — Shake Shack recently launched a strawberry salted limeade, which is not perfect but is one of the better options on the market. I think it needs to rely a bit more on the lime and salt, but the strawberry is not overwhelming despite being dominant. It makes for an above-average option in a pinch, and that has to count for something.

tl;dr: A ramble about quality lemonade and how it’s hard to find.

Stay informed, watch this: former NHL player Robin Bawa on being the first player of South Asian descent to play in the league

Links of the Day

This year’s Copa América will now be played in Brazil, moving the tournament from Argentina because of rising COVID-19 cases.

Kevin de Bruyne will not need surgery to repair the nose and eye socket fractures he suffered during the Champions League final.

Barcelona signed Sergio Agüero on a free.

A longer read: Andy Hunter on the rise of Morecambe under manager Derek Adams, who helped the team book promotion to League One for the Guardian