Coffee and marriage
Posted on September 30, 2009
Melissa and I have heard that his and her sinks, closets, garages, t.v.’s, etc. are the keys to a happy marriage. In a small one bathroom house, with less than a one car garage and only two t.v.’s all those “rules” are out the window. Our home averages about 260 sq. feet per person, not counting the dog, rabbit or hamster. We get along the old fashioned way. Compromise.
The end of our marriage became clear when Melissa declared recently, “I am going to learn to like coffee”. Why is this a necessity? She is a thirtysomething stay at home, homeschooling mom, who runs marathons for fun. So, sleep is short, she demands 10 hours and has to get by on 8.5 most nights. Diet Mt. Dew just doesn’t cut it. Besides, we don’t have a pantry to store 7-10 two litre bottles of the Diet Dew.
Coffee is easy. I have an expresso maker. Italian stove top style. Nope she declares too strong. She buys those instant packs. I state my absolute refusal to drink coffee from a tea bag. So we buy a traditional coffee maker. Free from the interweb no less.
This is good. Except I brew a pot of the dark breakfast blend roast. Too strong she declares while adding a 1/2 cup of water and 6 sweet and low’s to her java. We use all the breakfast blend and move to the french vanilla coffee. It came with the free coffee pot.
She loved it. A bit strong she says but she likes it. I can live with it. Let me remind you about my coffee here. http://www.bryansuddith.com/2009/03/14/coffee/
We finish off the vanilla flavored coffee. This is where it goes south. We head to the grocery store together to find more coffee. Suddenly separate sinks, closets, garages and possible a second bedroom seems appropriate. She is picking out every bag of ground beans that doesn’t sound like, smell like or taste like coffee. Creme’ brulee, caramel heaven, choco loco love, vanilla potpourri in a cup, I am checking out coffee. Coffee flavored coffee. Her list reads like the dessert menu at a steakhouse.
I was second away from buying a second coffee pot when I found the solution to our impending situation. Coffee flavoring syrup. This 20 ounce bottle of sugar free syrup is the answer. With just a teaspoon of this stuff in your coffee, your coffee no longer tastes like coffee. Voila’! Eureka! I have found it!
I grab my wife, who is panicking at the thought of a robust dark blend, and handed her a bottle of Sugar Free, No Calorie, Caramel Flavored syrup for her coffee. She held the bottle like a life line handed to her at sea, smiled, exhaled and acquiesced to my coffee flavored coffee.
All is well. This morning I awoke next to my wife and the smell of our coffee flavored coffee brewing just 40 feet down the hall. Marriage is good. Marriage with good coffee is even better. Thank you sugar free, calorie free, Caramel syrup. Tonight I make a place in my new cabinets for you, and your vanilla, chocolate and almond flavored friends. Welcome to my home, but stay out of my coffee cup.
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Sappy
Posted on April 5, 2009
I was thinking the other day about all the stuff that my kids will never experience, play with, watch or enjoy.
Here is my list:
- A dial phone. Shoot, I remember a two party phone. If you have to ask you were either rich or much too young to remember.
- A typewriter. My mom had a real typewriter. I typed my entire Eagle Scout Report on that thing. My son is proficient at MS Word at age 8.
- A phonebooth. A real phonebooth with a door and a seat. Remember those?
- How about Penny candy at the corner store. Or finding pop bottles in the ditch to cash in for a dime to buy the penny candy.
- Mr. Rogers. Need I say more. iCarly and the Suite Life with Zach and Cody are no substitute.
- MerryGoRounds and Teeter Totters on the playground. They have been outlawed.
- Jarts. Yard Darts. Come one. I never got hurt with those things.
- Marbles for keeps, they now play games in Japanese on cards for keeps. No aggies or shooters.
- VHS Players. My kids have already forgotten them
- Cassettes
Comment below to add your own.
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Food
Posted on March 30, 2009
I love food. I don’t want to marry it, nor am I addicted to any one special kind of food. I just love food. Not sure I am a foodie or not. Recently attempts have been made at a food review website. Writing and food seem like a good mix. Growing up lower middle class limited my fine dining experience. I remember my first meal at the Blue Chip club in Cincinnati. Nervous about forks, my tie and what to order for the brunch meal.
These days I am happy to say that I am equally comfortable at the Oakwood Club or the Dixie Diner in New Lebanon. For all the food I love, and recently I have been eating more salads and seafood, than burgers and steak, I can not make a decision about food. This is not a problem for most people, but at least 5 times a week I am eating out with someone and a decision has to be made.
This is the one decision I hate to make. I don’t care, Asian Fusion, Classic American, Deli or Diner, Italian or Pizza joint. I don’t care. I have a friend in the same category. When we eat he is quick to eliminate the one place that we understand is sometimes not appropriate. His requirement? A good bacon cheeseburger. I may be having a great pasta dish, or a pizza, or even a good salad with seafood piled high, he wants a good bacon cheeseburger.
To avoid the decision making process I have begun to implement a new strategy. It goes like this:
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Coffee
Posted on March 14, 2009
When I was a kid it was imperative that I could make my parents a cup of coffee. In the early 80’s my parents were instant coffee drinkers. The formula for mom’s morning drink and my father’s were different. As different as they were I suppose.
The water for their coffee was heated using a teapot. Tea was reserved for the flu. But hot water is essential to the instant coffee’s success. My mom’s coffee was always a heaping teaspoon of the Maxwell House instant, heaping teaspoon of sugar (kept in a covered bowl on the kitchen table, there was no dining room or dining room table, and a splash of vitamin D milk.
My dad’s cup of joe was different. Since he was a truck driver, he was accustom to the coffee served in diners and truck stops. At home his coffee was a flat teaspoon of the instant powder and a splash of cool water from the faucet. On the occasion’s that I would be with dad for breakfast a restaurant or diner, or even a fancy restaurant like Frisch’s he had his own coffee ritual. It went like this.
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trash can turkey
Posted on February 28, 2009
Not sure if you have heard about this cooking method or not. Last night we went out to the country (Bellbrook) for a dinner party with some friends. After some nimble navigation with the Blackberry and Google Maps we arrived to the smell of charcoal and roasting turkey. Next to the driveway a metal trashcan was inverted with charcoal blazing white on top. Very strange. The smell of turkey was seeping from under the edges of the upside down trashcan.
Mike, our host and trashcan cooker for the evening, explained how it worked. Under the trashcan was aluminum foil and stake drove into the ground. A cross was made with another piece of wood attached to the stake. The turkey would rest on this stake with the cross piece holding the turkey about 12-15 inches off the ground.
Using a large back of charcoal bricks, the turkey was placed on the stake. The trashcan was placed over the turkey and rested upside down on the foil. The now white hot charcoal was placed about 4-6 inches thick around the base of the trashcan on the foil. The remaining half of the charcoal was placed on the “top” of the inverted trash can.
Our 16 pound turkey cooked in about 95 minutes and it was perfect. Cooked exactly right, moist, tender and juicy with a hint of smokiness, but not overpowered like a smoked bird. This really poor photo, which I posted on Facebook, shows the glow of the charcoal at the base and top of the trashcan cooker.
For a much better understanding..click here.
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