Coffee - oh, man, don't know where to start. I have a long, strange history with coffee.
My dad was born in 1888 in a dirt poor, failed farming community in rural northern Italy. They nearly starved, ate squirrel, rat, lizard, anything to make a stew with some form of meat. Things like coffee and chocolate were unknown to him, they were things the aristocrats in fine carriages had. He had heard about them, but never actually saw either, until he was in his twenties.
When I was growing up in Boston in the fifties, there was always a box of chocolate bars in the fridge, which he always gave to me and my friends. To my dad, this was symbolic that he "had made it in life". He owned his own house, had a job, a family and chocolate to give away to children. Same thing with coffee.
There is an Italian dish commonly called Expresso Zabaglione. From his village it was known as Rosamatta (sp). It was something they never actually saw, just heard about. Break two eggs into a bowl, pour in two cups of steaming hot, black coffee, add sugar and milk, beat with an egg beater. It foams up.
He would make it for me for breakfast before I went off to school. I'd pour in my favorite cereal, usually something very healthy like sugar frosted flakes or Trix, chow it down and off I'd go. My dad had a third grade education, had to quit, then work in a factory instead, twelve hour days, two cents a day for pay. He didn't have any knowledge of nutrition. As I said, as a kid, he didn't see much food. So, to him, giving me a coffee whatever, was like being a millionaire, he had made it in life.
I went off to school every single day with coffee and sugar screaming through my system. Seven years old, wired out of my fricken mind. But it was natural to me. I didn't fidget in school, but when we moved, I moved quickly. The teachers always said, "That Buka should does have a lot of energy."
That was my initial exposure to coffee. I stopped drinking it when I was thirty, didn't have any again until my fifties. I was the only cop I knew who didn't drink coffee, I drank tea. But for the last twelve years, I've been making up for the lost time. I love coffee, absolutely adore it. Good coffee. I won't drink crap coffee or coffee that's been sitting for an hour. Has to be fresh.
I'll be back to this thread - but right now I'm Pavlovian and drooling. I'm going to go grind some beans and make myself a hot cup of Kona Peaberry. Oh, yum.
and then like 
. But then I tried it and was like 
.
