an addiction
 
2009-11-06: an addiction

My name is Jennifer and I am addicted to coffee...

For me coffee has always represented a rare species of dark secrecy. When I was young it was because I was not allowed to drink this bitter warm beverage that the adults in my life sipped after dinner or with breakfast as though it were the nectar of the Gods. I recall at quite a young age, my grandfather making me toast sticks (toast with peanut butter, cut into narrow sticks that somehow tasted so much better than regular toast with peanut butter) at the breakfast table in his kitchen; him sipping coffee and me sitting right up close to him, sniffing his coffee and wanting, more than anything, to be granted just one taste.

As I grew up I think that wine was offered to me before coffee was - probably because the one doing the offering was my mother. Besides loving to have the heady smell of coffee fill her kitchen, as a beverage she has never been its biggest fan. That is the thing about coffee. Some people love to drink it, some don't - but I don't know that I have ever met anyone who didn't at least appreciate the smell of it, wafting around them on almost any occasion. It definitely holds some sort of mystifying dominance over many people.

But, I digress.

Every morning starts for me with this lovely, supple, brunette cup of bitter yet sweet, searing yet calming, beverage...yet feast that I was finally able to taste for myself in high school. There were times when I gave up coffee; when my blood pressure was sky rocketing or when I was so sick or so very pregnant that the mere idea of drinking something that stimulating and flavoursome was simply unbearable. Those times, thank goodness, never lasted for long and I haven't yet had to swear off this beverage for an extended period of time.

Speaking of it, I think I might indulge in a second cup right now. What will it be?

Coffee, cappuccino, espresso (con panna?), latte, iced versions of any of them? There are so many options. That is one of the beauties of this drink, it can appeal to so many people in its varieties. And it goes so well with sweets. Speaking of which I think I might just have to eat the last slice of the Coffee-Infused Bundt Cake I made the other day.

Ah...perfection. A sip and a bite, a sip and another bite. That is what is going to get me through the Friday morning blahs.