coffee
A new day (at least, it used to be). I felt more positive this morning. Morning notes: Rubicon, A History of Private Life.
I made coffee in the bigger carafe that Kim and Robin went shopping for last night, to accommodate the new extra coffee-drinker in our household. They got an 8-cup Melitta carafe. I experimented with a new quantity of beans and water. It worked out well: we had barely enough. They had to go to London Drugs to find it; Wal-Mart didn't have one. According to Robin, no one uses cone-filters anymore because no one wants to wait for a kettle to boil. They buy coffee-makers, which are no doubt abundant at Wal-Mart.
"They can't even wait for a kettle to boil," said Kimmie. "They'd rather drink bad coffee."
"You can do other things while the kettle's boiling," I added.
Well, let others have their weak, tepid coffee, brewed in a plastic tank. I'm perfectly happy to grind beans, boil water, and pour it through a filter-cone--twice--to get my morning brew. Mm.
I seldom drank coffee until I left home in 1980 to live with my friends Brad and Keith. Then, on weekends, it became a ritual. Brad initiated us into heating and whipping milk to add to extra-strong French-roast coffee. A couple-three mugs later I'd be trembling and nervous from the caffeine, my stomach burning faintly as though famished. Keith liked to drink coffee almost continuously. He would trundle from kitchen to bedroom with mug after mug, leaving a trail of spots from the trembling of his caffeine-impaired neuromuscular system.
Occasionally I would have a coffee at work, in the Heather Pavilion cafeteria at night with the other blue-uniformed janitors. This stuff, urinated by a vending machine into a little cup of ribbed beige plastic, was notorious for its marginal drinkability. You had to push big buttons marked "white" and "sweet" to have additives dribbled into the warm brown water. I got laughs one night when Jim, one of my coworkers, spilled a whole cup on himself just as he was sitting down.
"Look on the bright side," I said, "at least you didn't get any in your stomach."
My father was a coffee addict. Once, after some kind of caffeine-induced collapse, his doctor made him inventory how many cups a day he actually drank. Dad sat in the exam room, counting them mentally. He worked in TV and everyone drank coffee as a matter of course, mainly from vending machines. I forget the total number; I believe it was in the 40s a day.
"Yeah," said Dad, "but you leave them sitting around half-finished. Never finish a cup of coffee."
He was ordered off caffeine on the spot.
I'm sensitive to caffeine (and most psychoactive drugs), so I couldn't drink that way even if I wanted to. For me, a key inducement to rolling out of bed at 6-ish each morning is those cups of fresh coffee that I make first thing. And bringing the first cup of the day up to Kimmie in our en suite bathroom, while she attends to her hair and makeup, is an act of respect and love. Now Robin is getting in on the act. On Monday, when she was up at the right time, I brought her up a cup too. What says "I love you" more than bringing someone a fresh cup of coffee?
Well?
I made coffee in the bigger carafe that Kim and Robin went shopping for last night, to accommodate the new extra coffee-drinker in our household. They got an 8-cup Melitta carafe. I experimented with a new quantity of beans and water. It worked out well: we had barely enough. They had to go to London Drugs to find it; Wal-Mart didn't have one. According to Robin, no one uses cone-filters anymore because no one wants to wait for a kettle to boil. They buy coffee-makers, which are no doubt abundant at Wal-Mart.
"They can't even wait for a kettle to boil," said Kimmie. "They'd rather drink bad coffee."
"You can do other things while the kettle's boiling," I added.
Well, let others have their weak, tepid coffee, brewed in a plastic tank. I'm perfectly happy to grind beans, boil water, and pour it through a filter-cone--twice--to get my morning brew. Mm.
I seldom drank coffee until I left home in 1980 to live with my friends Brad and Keith. Then, on weekends, it became a ritual. Brad initiated us into heating and whipping milk to add to extra-strong French-roast coffee. A couple-three mugs later I'd be trembling and nervous from the caffeine, my stomach burning faintly as though famished. Keith liked to drink coffee almost continuously. He would trundle from kitchen to bedroom with mug after mug, leaving a trail of spots from the trembling of his caffeine-impaired neuromuscular system.
Occasionally I would have a coffee at work, in the Heather Pavilion cafeteria at night with the other blue-uniformed janitors. This stuff, urinated by a vending machine into a little cup of ribbed beige plastic, was notorious for its marginal drinkability. You had to push big buttons marked "white" and "sweet" to have additives dribbled into the warm brown water. I got laughs one night when Jim, one of my coworkers, spilled a whole cup on himself just as he was sitting down.
"Look on the bright side," I said, "at least you didn't get any in your stomach."
My father was a coffee addict. Once, after some kind of caffeine-induced collapse, his doctor made him inventory how many cups a day he actually drank. Dad sat in the exam room, counting them mentally. He worked in TV and everyone drank coffee as a matter of course, mainly from vending machines. I forget the total number; I believe it was in the 40s a day.
"Yeah," said Dad, "but you leave them sitting around half-finished. Never finish a cup of coffee."
He was ordered off caffeine on the spot.
I'm sensitive to caffeine (and most psychoactive drugs), so I couldn't drink that way even if I wanted to. For me, a key inducement to rolling out of bed at 6-ish each morning is those cups of fresh coffee that I make first thing. And bringing the first cup of the day up to Kimmie in our en suite bathroom, while she attends to her hair and makeup, is an act of respect and love. Now Robin is getting in on the act. On Monday, when she was up at the right time, I brought her up a cup too. What says "I love you" more than bringing someone a fresh cup of coffee?
Well?
posted by paulv at
3:14 PM
1 Comments:
I love coffee. It's my only vice and I shall not ever give it up. My great-aunts used to have an afternoon coffeeklatsch everyday. Ma Stell made coffee in an old-fashioned steel assembly pot; it came out black, strong, and rich. She used to let me have some watered down--which put me off coffee until I was in my mid-twenties and it became breakfast loaded with milk and sugar. Now of course I select and grind my beans, consider that first cup of morning coffee a blessing of the universe, and am always on the hunt for good coffee.
Oh, one more thing: "... urinated by a vending machine into a little cup of ribbed beige plastic,..." -- brilliant line. d:)
By
Debra Young, at July 07, 2005 8:53 AM
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