One Saturday, not too long ago, Brett came over for breakfast. We like breakfast. It's our favorite meal to eat out and I'd argue that our best and most path-altering conversations took place over coffee and cheese grits at any of the dozen cafes we frequent. In the early stages of our relationship, I used to get up at 6:00am and drive to Mt. Pleasant just to see and have breakfast with him before he went into the office that day. I'm actually surprised how long this went on - still goes on really. A notion about Brett that I appreciate is his preference of quality over quantity. While I pride myself on penny-pinching, sensible financial decisions, and forgoing what I really want in favor of saving some money, Brett has eased me into the concept of buying a nice thing once and not having to replace it the next year. This change can be noted most prominently in the area of "footwear" as I now have less pairs of shoes with holes in them and have been purchasing shoes made of materials other than canvas and "leather" you can flick off with your fingernail. And while I initially object to spending a little more, I am pleased every time I look down at my shoes and see that they still look nice months later. Most things I adorn my body with have about a two week shelf-life.
I digress. What I'm getting at here is coffee. Good coffee. Well made, properly doctored up, hot, day-changing coffee. Before I met Brett I could slurp down your run-of-the-mill, burnt office kitchen coffee and be delighted. I also loved syrupy creamers and an extra packet of sugar. I thought that was the good life. Brett is a bit of a coffee snob and he is complacent in his snobbery. I didn't like this at first. I associate coffee snobs with wine connoisseurs and I associate those people with tight turtle-necks and pinched faces. I'll cut to it and tell you that Brett has morphed me into a refined Southern coffee lady and while I will happily partake in the weak, watery brew served over at the Union household, I am aware of and longing for coffee of a higher caliber.
After many trials and experiments, EisenEars came to the conclusion that pour-over coffee tickles his fancy most. About a year ago I insisted he buy his own mechanisms for which to make his favorited coffee at home instead of spending a few dollars on coffee every morning. That's my financial savvy mixing with his quality purchases. What a great team! And so he did, and he takes a solid half-hour to make coffee and sometimes I'll go out and buy a cup of joe while I wait for his sluggish brew to finishing trickling. But I'll tell ya, it's a dern good cup of coffee.
So there we were. Saturday morning. I'm frying bacon while Brett unloads his coffee contraption from his car. Grinder? Check. Beans? Check. Filters? Check. Trickle-draining system? Huh? He forgot the most important piece of the puzzle. He has these fake mugs that you put on top of your real mug and the fake mugs have holes in the bottom where the coffee drains through the filter that you jammed into that fake mug at the beginning of the whole process. Does that all make sense? It really doesn't matter. The point is, he had no way to strain the water from the beans. Since I fancy myself an innovative-Chis Union style-problem solver, I had many a solution to this conundrum. I simply placed a coffee filter in a strainer and though I had to hold the filter upright with one singed finger, I had a hot cup of coffee in no time. Engineer Eisenhauer imagined a more efficient draining system that didn't burn your hands. I foresaw any other draining methods to be overly complicated but after a few gentle attempts to thwart his schemes, I saw that stubbornness had set in and he just needed to do this.
So I went back to my bacon frying and left him behind me, rigging up a mousetrap for his coffee to run through. There was lots of grunting and clanging going on behind me. I noticed that my handy strainer was not being used and I shook my head knowingly. Suddenly he asked me for a rubber band, "Quick!" he said and I scampered off to find one. I arrived at the sink, rubber band in hand, to see that he had employed three mugs, two salad plates, and a serving spoon to the task of making coffee. I didn't say anything. I could tell Brett was mad. I went back to my bacon.
"I need something to strain with." he said. The typically musical sound to his speech was not there. Definitely mad. I offered him some cheesecloth from a brief phase of making my own labneh and he politely took it and turned back around to his contraption. I quietly dropped bread in the toaster, wondering if the coffee would stain his whole day. Brett has a pretty long fuse and typically won't let something ruin his day. He's wonderfully optimistic and cheerful and I love this about him, but with that there, it means he makes up for lost time when he does finally become incensed. The same has been said about me so I can sympathize with frustration induced rage. I heard a wet thud smack the inside of the sink and Brett let out a snarl. I peeked over his shoulder and saw coffee grounds everywhere. A trail of coffee drips led from one end of the counter, though the sink, and out the other side. A colander had appeared from somewhere and I could tell by the way he handled his torn coffee filter that the water was no longer hot.
"Breakfast is ready." I said gently, eyes wide, teeth clenched. He put down a spatula and a teapot and we ate in relative silence. Out of solidarity, I did not drink my now luke-warm coffee with my breakfast. It sat on the counter between us, a reminder of the fight he was having with kitchenware.
As I cleaned up the breakfast mess, Brett consolidated the trace amounts of pure coffee from the three mugs into one and he threw his head back and chugged a half cup of cold, un-doctored coffee in three large gulps and then let out a manly cry as he plunked the mug down into the sink.
"Done. It's done." he said and he promptly loaded his experiment into the dishwasher, wiped down the counters, and decided to be happy again. We did not speak of the coffee that day. Brett wandered out into the yard to bag leaves and gather materials for tiling the backsplash in the kitchen. I had a wedding later that afternoon and ran errands around town to prepare for the day. On my way home, I stopped by our favorite coffee shop and purchased a large, piping hot cup of coffee and left it in the garage for Brett to find.
Maybe we lost money on this one.
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