7 MINUTE COFFEE

Last week, our coffeemaker died.


The light went on, the coffee bin full of coffee, the water filled up to the top of the reservoir. But it didn’t drip, it didn’t make the gurgling- I’m-boiling-hot-sound that lets me-know-coffee-is-on-its-way and all was right with the world. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

In my house, that’s not a good thing. We are both coffee addicts and can’t start the day without at least a full pot between us. Our morning ritual consists of getting up, feeding the animals and making the coffee. Everything else has to wait, even if the house is on fire.


Sometime in the afternoon I will fire up another pot and have a cup or two. If there’s company in the evening, another pot will be made to go with dessert. Yes, we love our coffee. In fact, the only thing we like better is pasta. My husband said he was never so happy as when he found I could cook pasta without it becoming paste like or stuck together. Anyone else he had ever dated over cooked it. We agreed the formula in which to cook perfect pasta laid in the timing, which was seven minutes.


So I stood at the counter and stared at the red light that seemed to be mocking me and my plea, silently begging it to stop fooling around and start dripping. Had it been not been blizzard conditions outside, I would have jumped in the car and ran to get a new one.


Suddenly, I remembered the stovetop coffee pot I had picked up at an antique store years earlier. Standing there proudly like the old workhorse she once was, I was reminded of a scene out of the Island of Lost Toys when I saw her. White with a red handle and glass dome top, she was in pretty good shape and not banged up like a lot of them. I remembered seeing her and a taller, blue speckled pot, standing amongst other old time accoutrements, red & white clothe towels and tablecloths, large ceramic roosters. I chose the old grand dame of coffeepots, but had intended to use it solely as a decorative piece.


After retrieving it from the box of other things I never use down in the basement, my mind wandered for just a while. As I washed the pot lovingly in hot, soapy water, I was suddenly transported back in my kitchen as a young wife and mother.


My memory brought me back to another morning, where I was standing at the sink, a child at my right side and a baby in my belly.  Instead of washing the white coffee pot, it was now a silver one with a black handle, a housewarming gift received years earlier.


My mother-in-law never shared recipes with me, but she did show me how to make coffee. Measuring out the coffee grinds to fill the removable basket, she instructed offhandedly to “let it perk for 5 minutes.”


My style was a little more scientific, using the boilover method. I would wait until the coffee first boiled over onto the stove, then turned it down to simmer for seven, not five, minutes. It worked every time and was perfect, so I stuck to the boil over method. I cooked it that way for years, while babies multiplied and played with pots on the kitchen floor, and my stomach grew bigger and bigger. I cooked it that way until Joe DiMaggio came into our lives with the appliance that changed everything.


The smell of the fresh coffee cooking on the stove permeated the entire kitchen.


“What are you making?” he asked while rubbing his eyes. Situating himself at the kitchen table, he spied the white coffee pot with the red handle. His eyes grew wide with the wonderment of a child, his mouth wide with a smile.


“Coffee” I said simply, and I poured the velvety hot liquid into a cup sitting in front of him.


“The right way.”


We sat together silently, sipping the elixir of the gods and continuing our morning ritual.


I don’t think they even make those silver coffee pots anymore, except maybe in camping or outdoor stores.


But I think I’ll do my best to find one, even if I have to get it on Ebay.


And for some reason, I felt like cooking pasta.