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"Do you want to come in for a cup of coffee before you go
home?"
"I quit drinking coffee," I reply.
As the words leave my mouth, I'm taken back to the episode of Seinfeld
where George Costanza's date invites him up for coffee and he declines,
saying it keeps him up at night. He and I realize together that perhaps
coffee doesn't necessarily mean coffee.
"Really?"
"Almost. Sometimes on the weekends I have a cup." It's Saturday night,
this IS the weekend. "It doesn't keep me up," I add hastily.
I quit drinking coffee sort of accidentally. My new job was an hour
away and there were no coffee drinkers there. Or at least, there was no
coffee pot. I had gotten in the habit of stopping on the way for
coffee. And a donut. Or Pop-tarts. Or a bagel with a shmear of cream
cheese. As the habit formed, it was rarely just coffee.
I decided that I would save myself some time in the morning if I didn't
stop for coffee. The more I thought about it, I realized that besides
the time, I would also save money, since even gas station coffee adds
up. Besides the time and money, I told myself, Pop-tarts really aren't
the breakfast of champions. Neither are Donettes. Or cream cheese. Save
time... save money... live longer. It all made sense.
Because I hate the idea of cleaning out a coffee pot every day, I
bought an appliance called the Sunbeam Hot Shot. Pour water in the top,
and a minute later, boiling water is dispensed from the bottom. Not
only functional, its sleek black design looks good in the corner of my
office. The plan: instant coffee.
My friend in El Slavador lives among some of the finest coffee farms in
the world. The coffee farmers sell their prized estate-grown beans to
Starbucks, who sells it to you and me at $4 a pop. She tells me it's
impossible to find a decent cup of joe in El Salvador, as the locals
drink crappy instant coffee. If it's good enough for them, I can
survive on instant coffee.
Coffee is so deeply engrained in our culture that it seems
impossible to escape. "Let's get together for coffee," you might
suggest. My friend Ken used to think of coffee as currency. I gave him
a ride downtown one day, and as he got out of the car, he said,
"Thanks, man. I owe you a cup of coffee."
American office workers take "coffee breaks," even when there
is no coffee. A coworker and I took turns "making the Sauce"
throughout the day. Another former officemate used to charge me $5 a
week to have access to his coffeepot in the morning. It was worth it;
it was a vintage Mr. Coffee that kept the temperature hovering at about
200 degrees Farenheit.
The problem started the morning that my new plan was to be
implemented. I looked in the cupboard and realized I didn't have any
instant coffee to take to the office, and stopping to get some would
defeat the purpose of the plan. I discovered that I did have teabags,
so I took those with me as a temporary stop gap measure.
Eventually, I was in the grocery store in front of a shelf of instant
coffee. I hummed a jingle from my childhood, "If Nescafe can please the
whole wide world, it can sure please you..." I don't think they make
Nescafe anymore.
I meandered down the aisle and came to the tea. Black tea. Green
Tea. White tea? Raspberry. Lemon. Herbal. Decaf. Chai.
Darjeeling. Earl Gray. Oolong. Rooibos. Who needs coffee when there are
so many kids of tea!
My date feigned rapt attention as I explained all this.
"And so, I almost never drink coffee anymore."
"That's ok, I don't even think I have coffee anyway."
Do the math: she invited me in for coffee when she had no coffee. To
paraphrase Freud, coffee is never just coffee.
Recipe: Sausage with Tropical Fruit
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