Coffee and I - part 3

The smell of coffee always reminds me of home, of Mom tossing the coffee grounds into the compost, of Dad’s outside projects, of cups wedged between the dashboard and windshield of the Dodge station wagon. (Yes, there was a time that cars didn’t have “cup holders.”)

            I very much liked the aroma. I very much disliked the taste.

            There were two instigating factors that made me realize this had to change: Glen Holmen after the Peter Gabriel concert and working the night shift.

            Flash back to 1986, before my 15 minutes of fame at the U2 concert. Living in Santa Monica, my husband and I befriended Steve Taylor’s bass player, Glen Holmen. For a hoot, we sent him a ticket to a Peter Gabriel concert. We all went, had a great time. He dropped us off at our place and we found out that Miriam doesn’t know the first thing about making coffee!

            When we moved back to Vermont a few months later, I got a job as a nursing assistant on night shift. The wonder and the ritual of coffee continued. Weary nurses and assistants huddled over mugs of the steaming brew, often with a cigarette in the other hand. (Yes, there was a time when nurses could smoke at the desk.)

            One night, a nurse from another unit came up with a silver tea set and General Foods International Coffee. I had seen the commercials: “I detect a little mint.”

            It was then that the mystique and practicality of concentrated caffeine hit me, first in waves and then in desperation. Could this amazing liquid help me get through the night shift?

            I then embarked on a personal odyssey. I was going to learn to make coffee. I was going to learn to like it. I taught myself to like Brussels sprouts; I could learn to like coffee.

            He must have heard of my plight, for my brother bought me a coffee maker. Let the experiments begin.

            Black: bleck.

            With milk: a little better.
            Half and half? Now we’re talking. But it’s still hard to drink.

            Wait, don’t the Brits drink something like buttered coffee? Tried it. Weird.

            Okay, so people have these flavored coffees, like vanilla. I have some of that. Not sure how to measure it, so here’s a dollop.

            As a teetotaler, that tiny amount of alcohol did a strange thing. By now I was very awake, but suddenly very relaxed. I nixed the vanilla extract idea.

            It didn’t take too many days after that for me to realize that coffee didn’t have to taste awful. I eventually read the recommended proportions of water and grounds. I had been making a poor man’s espresso. “When all else fails, read the [fine] manual.”

            Success!

           

            Now I hope there will come a day when I can offer my favorite bassist a cup of coffee.

Coffee and I - part 2

part 2

            We’d ridden along Route 100, been cooled by the fragrant edge of Moss Glen Falls, counted our swallows as we climbed and descended the mountain. We were almost there, almost in Waitsfield, where a beloved aunt and uncle lived in the General Wait home.

            Before entering the darling little town, it would greet us: the aroma of roasted coffee. A small business called Green Mountain Coffee Roasters was preparing its coffee beans. Even though I was still too young for coffee, how I loved that aroma!

            I must admit, however, how much more I loved the aroma of Aunty Ruth’s celebrated home made dinner rolls. But that is another story.

Coffee and I

     We’ve heard it, smelled it, tasted it. Some like it. Some hate it.

            And then there are those of us who love it. Ours is a passion and sentiment that rivals even that for chocolate. It wakens, welcomes, speaks, socializes, feeds and even puts the bold to bed.

            Mom or Dad let me try it when I was a little. I didn’t like it. I marveled at the bitterness. It must be one of those magical grownup things. Perhaps that wondrous aroma promised the revealing of a mystery that was yet beyond me.

            That mystery is coffee.

            Coffee was part of my life from my preverbal days. It fascinated me. Mom and Dad drank coffee with milk. I remember the cloudy white center in that singular light brown liquid that evolved when a cup of it was left forgotten. I often saw the cloud in the bottom of a cup in the sink, too. A gentle shake of the cup produced delightful transformations.

            Dad had a plastic mug with a removable wire handle. It was a sparkly copper brown color with a white lip and white inside. The white often bore horizontal rings of brown staining. Like the rings on a tree, the space between the rings revealed Dad’s coffee drinking style. He would sip and work, sip and work. Sometimes there was a big gulp.

            Long before the “Red Solo Cup,” Mom and Dad and a whole bunch of people in the 1970s used Solo cups. There was a plastic frame into which you popped conical disposable cups. I wonder if they still exist. Perhaps it is better if they don’t. Nonetheless, it was a remarkable idea for marketing. The inserts couldn’t stand on their own. If you bought the idea or bought the holders, you had to buy more inserts.

            That sounds like today’s Keurig style coffee makers!