Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Coffee Ingenuity

It all started after I got home from work Monday night.  

Abbey was eating her supper, with her back to the dishwasher door.   I needed to open that door to pull out the cookie sheet from the dishwasher, so that I could roast the head of cauliflower I cut up for dinner.  I was too impatient to wait for Abbey to finish, and she does NOT like to be asked to move when she is eating.

So, I did the logical thing.  I opened the door of the dishwasher, letting it rest on Abbey's back.  (she was heavily engrossed in her kernels and didn't seem to mind).  Since the big cookie sheet was wedged on the side of the dishwasher, I had to slide the rack up a bit, to pull it out.

And that's when it all went terribly wrong.

As that rack angled up the door, I heard one of my big stoneware dinner plates rolling downhill.  The next sound I heard was "SMASH....tinkle tinkle tinkle.."  

The dish had rolled right into the coffee maker carafe, smashing it to bits.

RATS!

After picking out all the tiny shards of glass from the dishwasher, I rinsed off the cookie sheet and continued roasting my cauliflower.

I then went on-line to see if I could find a replacement DeLonghi carafe.  No such luck.  The one that broke is the 2nd one I've had.  Anne found it at a Goodwill store for $5.  Bless her.  How would I tell her what happened to it?

So, I ordered a whole new coffee maker from Amazon.  I know.  A little extreme.  But, I'm from SEATTLE.   Got free shipping too!  But it won't be here until February 2nd.

I can wait until then!  What's a few cups of tea between friends?

And then,  Tuesday morning came around.

No coffee.  The hot tea I substituted only upset my stomach.  I was useless until I got a grande double mocha around 11:00.

But I know myself. I couldn't buy my coffee late in the day.  I need it EARLY.

So, I decided today would be different, so I devised the home-drip system in the photo above.

A glass beer stein substituted for the coffee maker carafe.  The tea kettle heated the water.  The filter from the coffee maker was balanced in the beer stein.  Coffee was ground.  Hot water was poured in the filter as I held it over the stein.  And it S-L-O-W-L-Y dripped into the stein. 

I poured the brew into my coffee cup, added my skim milk (sorry Travis) and Splenda and...MORNING COFFEE!

You know what, it was pretty good!  


5 comments:

Contact Travis said...

I love it! necessity/mother of invention and what not eh?

thanks for the pic too....this post was wonderful.

Dan-Eric Slocum said...

I have an old friend who has always made coffee this way--and loves it.

Congrats.

Colleen said...

Anna Kelly does that in the morning, haha. I'm afraid I'd always make it too strong. I've ruined so many glass coffee pots that I've switched to the keurig one cup coffee maker.

Kristin said...

That is AWESOME! You rock! I couldn't live without coffee either. We have a stainless steel coffee pot, which is good. I can never break it.

Sher Grater said...

My brother-in-law used that method to make coffee every morning when we stayed with him a couple years back. I think REI sells something similar now - perfect for camping, eh?! I broke my coffee pot a while back too, why can't they just be made of space shuttle material already? Gah!