one sip

On my first sip of coffee this morning I declare out loud "oh my god."  It tastes and smells so good. I love my morning cup of coffee. It feels like coming home to some special place that maybe I only have in my imagination, but it matters not. It works every morning on every first sip. Yesterday I started a 48 hour weekend cleanse. I maintained the instructions to the letter all day. But this morning day two still suffering from a headache that started yesterday and with low energy, I have decided to break it. Instead of quinoa which I do not enjoy I am having oatmeal with prunes as a replacement and I AM HAVING MY MORNING CUP OF COFFEE. So attached I am to my coffee. The grand attraction to the brew started with my dad who would go anywhere for a "good cup of coffee" I have many fond memories having coffee with my Dad. In those days he didn't make it at home. Part of the experience was the reward of jumping in the car and going out for coffee. He always seemed so relaxed and pleased when he had a cup of coffee in front of him. He was a man on the go, never stopping. But when he had coffee he sat down and would talk about what was on his mind, usually politics and history. Most of the places we went to he knew the waitresses and the customers so it had a very strong social component. And he wasn't shy about sending it back and saying "fresh pot please" If a restaurant didn't fulfill the basic requirement of good coffee we didn't go there. In his retirement years in his 80's his docs kept telling him, despite the fact that he had low blood pressure, Bob you have to stop drinking coffee Its no good for you. His response was to buy really dark roast coffee, make  it strong and have a smaller cup of coffee so he could report back that he was cutting down on his coffee and then to me declaring, "they don't understand, it takes away all my aches and pains."  The other connection is the book A Tree Grows In Brooklyn which my father gave me to read the summer before seventh grade, when I was 11 yrs old. The summer before he had given me all the Mark Twain books we had in the house. This began my relationship with books. After "Tree" he gave The Red Pony by Steinbeck and then more Steinbeck. My Dad gave me the shoes to walk my journey through books with those summer reading lists...and among other things the appreciation of a good cup of coffee so when you had nothing at all you could still have something.




There was a special Nolan idea about the coffee. It was their one great luxury. .you could help yourself to a cup of coffee anytime you felt like it. Sometimes when you had nothing at all and it was raining and you were alone in the flat, it was wonderful to know that you could have something even though it was only a cup of black and bitter coffee.