Tuesday, May 14, 2013



Morning Ritual

I love a good cup of coffee…or two…or three…I don’t remember when I started drinking it every day, but I do remember my first cup.  When I was little my mother used to invite church ladies over for meetings and she would let me try a cup, loaded with milk and sugar.  I was probably around 5 or 6, so coffee is one of my earliest memories.

I think I’ve had every possible type of coffee-making gizmo, from the ubiquitous Mr. Coffee maker, percolator, French Press, Melita filter baskets and a kind that made a cold brew that one heated it up in the microwave.  Good flavor, but no aroma!

When we were in Italy last fall I relished every sip of the common cappuccino and came back determined to make something that comes close without spending hundreds of dollars on an espresso machine.  A couple of Christmases ago Emily and Jeff gave me a Biraletti Moka, the Italian poor-man’s espresso maker.  After finally figuring out how to use it, with the help of many a YouTube video, I enjoyed showing off my espresso expertise to guests after dinner.  And then, voila! I realized this was the key to making my morning coffee.

After quite a bit of experimentation this is what I came up with:  fill bottom section with cold water, up to the escape valve (mine holds 10 ounces).  Add 2 rounded tablespoons of finely ground strong coffee, such as French Roast, to the coffee container.  Screw on top and put on a medium high burner for about 8 minutes.  The fun part is watching the coffee come bubbling up into the top section.  While coffee is making I microwave ½ cup of almond milk for 1 minute, then froth it.  This makes 2 small cups of marvelous coffee, very close to what we had in Italy, with pretty foam on top.



I take my cup to the sunroom and sit quietly for a few minutes, trying to empty my mind and start the day truly anew.  Perhaps this could be called meditation or prayer, but I can hardly get started without it.  Then I read a poem or two and I’m ready to work.  Delicious!


Monday, May 6, 2013


Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks

I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years....

I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper....

When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me....

I am food on the prisoner's plate....

I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills....

I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden....

I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge....

I am the heart contracted by joy....
the longest hair, white
before the rest....

I am there in the basket of fruit
presented to the widow....

I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit....

I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name....

                                     Jane Kenyon, from Things