I always start the day with a couple of cups of coffee. Not lattes. Not half foam Americana's. Just plain joe. Black. In a big cup.
We often argued when we were first married about coffee and how to make it. I had a old fashioned Faberware percolator that I had for about twenty years. It had a plug and you had to take the guts out to clean. It didn't have paper filters or any of that bullshit. Just hot strong coffee. It was the best coffee pot I ever had.
It finally gave up the ghost and we proceeded to buy a new one. Unfortunately it was a disaster. You see China had bought the company and everything was being produced over there. Which means it works for about a year and then the heating element goes. So for the past six years or so we would buy a new one and throw out the old one. It was a disaster.
Finally someone gave us a brand new Mister Coffee. I hadn't had one since the seventies. I hate the coffee it makes. But I had to use it because I was tired of the complaints of the weak coffee a dying Faberware pot would make. I have to make sure I have the fucking filters and all that shit. The only solace I have is that I use high octane coffee and make it incredibly strong. I used to hate Mr. Coffee because that is what we always had in the accounting offices I used to work in. They would always make bland insipid coffee and it was like drinking dishwater. I guess I just have to get over it and take it like you have to do with so many things as you age and lose agency over your life.
I was introduced to coffee by my grandma when I was six years old. When I would go over her house she would give me a shot of espresso before I went around the corner to Sacred Hearts grammar school. So I am used to really strong black coffee since I was a kid.
I hate Star Bucks and all of those fancy bullshit coffees. I would always get my coffee and buttered roll from the little aluminon carts that the have in front of subway stops and the LIRR. It was always hot and strong. I would always make friends with the guys running the carts giving a cheery hello and a good word as I am happy in the mornings. In the last couple of decades these guys always seem to be Muslims. In fact I vividly remember one of them asking me what train I took to get to the Flatbush Avenue stop on the LIRR. I told him the G train and he said that was good. It was around 1997 or 98 and later that month a couple of mooks got arrested for planning to bomb the Flatbush Avenue station of the IRT. See it always pays off to be nice even if you don't mean it.
So excuse me while I fire up the pot. I need some more caffeine to get through the day.
13 comments:
I only drink espresso which I make every morning in a small stovetop moka. The device is all brass and stainless steel-- a real piece of art made in Italy which I acquired about 30 years ago. These make coffee using steam which is completely different than coffee made using hot water. Chemically speaking, steam is non polar and does a better job extracting caffeine and oils. I fell in love with Italian style coffee when I was 19 and I'm too old to go back to American swill.
On a recent trip through Denver, I stopped at Darcy's place and she showed me her milk frother (hmm, that sounds kinda dirty:). Anyways, I bought one as soon as I got back to WI. Now I make cappuccino every morning.
I bought a nice Alessi espresso maker last time I was in Italy. I drank espresso for a while but switched back to black tea. I think I gave the espresso maker to my girlfriend - she likes espresso, being part Italian and all.
I got a Cuisinart refurbished coffee maker. They eventually give out but it makes good coffee.
Mr. Coffee is junk, rotten thing drips when you remove the pot. You can still get a stove top percolator, they get a little sloppy if you let it boil.
For the last decade we have used Bunn coffee makers. There is a well of hot water so when you pour in the new water the hot water is dispersed and you have good, hot, strong coffee in a couple minutes. We use filtered water which makes crisp coffee and keeps the machine from getting gunked up by hard water. We have very hard water in the upper midwest.
Drank "coffee regular" as a young man. That's what noreasterners call coffee w/ cream and sugar. Switched to just cream in my mid 20's and by 30 was black. The espresso revolution that hit this country made morning surveillance much easier on the bladder. I did learn to piss just about anywhere undetected.
What makes the coffee pots bad is why the Reds are in trouble outside the Forbidden City.
As the Eminent Mr Surber has noted, Commie dictatorships have a half life of about 80 years, so China looks like Shih better have a place in Paris all picked out for his retirement.
If he survives.
Troop, we've been using the small Farberware (4-cup) percolator since the 1990's. I'm up early and drink my pot's worth of Maxwell House French Roast and then the wife makes her own pot of Dunkin Decaf. You're right their longevity has steadily decreased, but to get around that we always have a backup new in the box waiting in the pantry.
I also have a stovetop Farberware percolator in case of power failure, and recently used it one morning on our return trip from Denver when I accidentally booked a non-electric campsite.
I like the fact that the Farberware percolator makes HOT coffee. Drip, K-cup, and French press all produce swiftly cooling coffee.
My first experience with espresso was Cafe Cubano from a shop in Miami's Calle Ocho in the late 70's. That stuff was like White Crosses cut with meth. Too much jitters for me.
ndspinelli, I was a "coffee regular" drinker until my early 40's when my weight started ballooning. It was a painful switch to artificial sweetener and diet drinks, but my sweet tooth must be obeyed.
"White crosses cut w/ meth." I bet you could find that in Miami. Calle Ocho is en fuego right now.
I was there before Castro emptied his prisons and mental wards in 1980. My sis-in-law had a job at a NMB civil engineering firm and they employed me on a surveying crew (the crew was expat or first gen Cubans) during college winter breaks. I was pretty useless on Little Havana and Dade County jobs but was front man when we went up to Broward County.
We were doing Florida Turnpike Extension, Light Rail preliminary, and Port Everglades Expressway surveying. I enjoyed standing on the west end of the FLL Airport runway with a survey pole and jets taking off over me.
I worked w/ a guy @ Leavenworth. When the Mariel's arrived he volunteered to help run a detainment facility @ Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. He regretted that decision. Said they made Leavenworth look tame.
Jimmy Carter got snookered.
No, Bucketmouth was doing what David Rockefeller told him to do.
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