I can’t even poke my kids and say “Hey, do something funny.”
Okay, I can poke Beta and he’ll step up to the plate, but sometimes translation is hard and you can’t distill the funny into a cut-scene. So today we do shameless promotion.
(cue trumpet fanfare)
BEHOLD SHAMELESS PROMOTION!
Today’s beloved topic is the coffee.
Oh, that magical brew that allows me to be functional against my natural circadian rhythm and the demands of children who apparently do not have circadian rhythms and do not respect the circadian rhythms of others. The brand I propose to you today is the Perle Noire.
(linky goes not to the Amazonian empire and I am not being paid for this review)
The bag was a birthday gift from my sister-in-law, who understands my love of coffee. She also understands that Mama Ain’t Proud(tm) and I will drink whatever coffee is on hand. Because I am just grateful to have coffee. Because its hard to justify the really expensive coffee when I have a pack of feral chimps in my house who’ll eat two dozen hardboiled eggs in less than a day.
There’s my self-slam. I’m cheaper than eggs.
Thus I am gifted the Expensive Coffee. Because when you’re all grown up, its the expensive treats that really get you excited.
Anyway – I cannot tell you in pretentious wine terms about “hints of oak” or “a chocolate finish”. I have not that refined a palate (see again, Mama Ain’t Proud(tm)) But it is smooth. So smooth. Like they took out that bitter sucker punch of your first morning’s hit and replaced it with unicorns and rainbows. I suppose it must be mentioned that I drink my coffee black. Black black blackity black. No sugar. No cream. Nothing. Just me, hot water, and the sacred almighty bean to whom I pledge life and loyalty.
There is nothing to stand between me and whatever the Coffee Gods decide to put in my mug in the morning and so I must taste its full savage judgement.
And Perle Noire loves me. It says to me “Child, life is hard. You’re going to need this. Godspeed.” And I say, “Thank you, Perle Noir. Without you, my life is meaningless.”
Even the smell is smooth. Everything about Perle Noire is dark and silky and full of love. You want Perle Noir. Trust me.
(scene opens in harried dinning room, Carrot combing the hair of a suffering Delta)
Gamma: Mom, did you know there are people who think the earth is flat?
Me: (just not having it this morning) Yes. They’re stupid. There are some people in this world who – no matter the unarguable truth you put before them – will only believe what they want to believe. Although its possible some don’t, they just like picking fights and watching people get upset. They’re stupid too. Avoid them.
Delta: But mountains! The earth isn’t flat because mountains.
Me: Wrong kind of flat. It’s bumpy, but they think the earth isn’t shaped like a ball, but like a frisbee.
Gamma: Why do they think that?
Me: (aggravated, puts hands to head) People who believe conspiracy theories do so because its an issue of control. Or power. You can’t tell them what to do. You aren’t the boss of them. If you told them the sun set in the west, they’d argue it sets in the north just because they want to be right. Not correct. But right. Being right and being correct are two different things, and they’re so convinced of their super smarty better-than-you selves, that they cling to conspiracy lies just so they can lord it over people that “Ha ha, I know the truth and you don’t!” and give themselves a sense of self-worth.
Gamma: There’s a kid in my class who says the earth is flat.
Me: Don’t be friends with those kinds of people. Its just not worth it.
Gamm: Wait, there are other people like that?!
Me: Damn, girl, they’re everywhere. And they’re not worth your time.
(scene opens in small kitchen. Platters of frozen ingredients thawing: everything from meat to mulberries. Kitchen aid-mixer running.)
Me: (muttering to self) Bread going, where are the peppers?
(Carrot take down small red glass jar, holding five small red pepper. Carefully shakes one out, begins to de-seed. Crumbles to near dust in her hands.)
Me: Damnit, they’re too old. I can’t use these.
(Pepper flakes re-bottled, Carrot turns back to mixer, tests dough with finger.)
Me: Damnit, too watery and I’m out of flour.
(Carrot absently licks fingers. Freezes. Surprised look on her face.
Me: Oh. They’re not too old.
(Carrot claps hand over her mouth, begins hunting for coffee mug, downs it)
So once upon a time, I use to play with making mead. And when I say “play with” I really do mean it. I have this delightful inclination to go full on Lab Kid* when doing anything halfway arty. I can’t say halfway sciencey because we all know the difference between fvcking around and science is writing it down.
I was not writing it down in those days.
In that Fvck Around Phase I made some hella good mead. A few stands outs were a my plain sweet, a morat (mulberry mead), and a peach mead. My brewing process went as follow –
1.4 cup orange juice to start off a packet of Montrachet yeast
2.5 gallons of tap water (Lake Michigan for you aqua connoisseurs)
2.5 gallons of blackberry honey from the Great North Wests somewhere. I think from Glory Bee.
I’ll give a few of you a moment to wipe the coffee you just spit all over your screen. Yes. 2.5 gallons. We good? Okay – so I like mead sweet. Those of you with even the smallest bit of fermenting knowledge will not be surprised to hear it took me nearly two years for it to be drinkable. And I bet it could have gone longer, but as soon as I brought some bottles out to test drink, it went fast. Any notes I took – if I was even halfway that organized – had me do some math. I only remember this math on the alcohol content because I did it several times over, 100% certain I had totally fubar’ed my math and it just wasn’t humanly possible.
It was clocking in at 20%.
Okay, you really need to stop drinking when you’re reading my hilarious interludes. Get a fresh cup and come back.
This ridiculously high alcohol content is hilarious because I am a lightweight beyond compare. I bring shame upon my known-for-heavy-drinking ancestors with my two drink drunk. Alas.
My morat ran as follows –
Same juice set up, 3 gallon bucket, who knows how much honey, topped off with water.
No notes. Because I was full on mad scientist, which wasn’t really all that sciencey because no documentation. Who knows what my alcohol content was. But that got drunk as fast as the blackberry sweet.
The peach?
Same juice set up
12 pounds of mashed peaches with skins ripped off (you can’t really peel peaches when they’re really ripe, just mutilate them)
Oh hey, look, I have some left over honey in this three gallon bucket. I have no idea how much honey is in there, lets just dump it all in and add some water and call it a day.
See? Very precise. Such Math. Much Science.
Even with my lightweightness, that had a kick. I had racked them into 16 oz Grolsch bottles I had saved for this project. Half way through one of them I had to lay on the floor and recover. Five years later it was still amazing. I only know this for it having shown up in a Mystery Brew Box (for having no label) where adventurous re-enactors would drink for a dollar donation. It was the hit of the evening.
And now we are here. I have a little black book now and am more sciencey than arty.
Raw honey and here we go! I know some of you are thinking – why is the water and honey separated? Are they supposed to be mixed?
Yeah. I guess so? I did this with my blackberry sweet. I’d have to roll the carboy every couple of weeks to agitate the top layer of honey as the yeast slowly ate its way down. I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason the yeast was able to accomplish this task, it gave it time to build up tolerance. Also I’m sure there’s some sort of very niche-trick of slow fermentation that impacts the final product something something wine snob goes here.
Weirdly, the water/honey was more homogenous until I poured in the o.j. with the nicely foaming yeast. Cleared it like oil and water. Fascinating. So now my yeasties beasties are going to slowly nibble from the top down.
I guess we’ll see what we get? In two years? It’s only three gallons, so maybe we’ll see in one year.
(scene opens in dining room not Carrot’s. Family party in progress, mostly adults around the table)
Beta: (takes empty chair, downs the last of a bottle of root beer)
Cousin K: You drank it all?
Beta: Yeah.
Carrot: I thought you liked root beer.
Beta: I do. Just that it was super flat. I went to take off the cap and it just fell off like someone had opened it.
(silence falls)
Aunt T: It’s a good idea not to drink bottles that have already been opened.
Husband: That’s someone cracking it open at the store, taking a drink and putting it back.
Me: Or putting something inside of it.
Beta: (shrugs)
(scene ends)
(new scene in grocery store refrigerated aisle)
Me: (looking at prices of small juice bottles) It says three for five – did you want to try the cranberry flavor? Get an OJ, apple, and then cranberry?
Beta: Sure.
(Carrot reaches up to get the cranberry juice)
Beta: Wait! Look at the lid.
(camera close up on broken seal)
Beta: We probably shouldn’t drink that. See? I can learn! (laughs stupidly)
Me: Your father would be so proud of you. You just might live to see adulthood.
(scene opens in near empty waiting room, tv in corner blathering on)
Alpha: What in gods name is that?
Me: (pained) Real Wives of New Jersey.
Alpha: Why the hell is she so obsessed with her nose?
Me: Well, when you only see your worth in your looks, every little wrinkle counts.
(show drones on, petty dramas are petty)
Alpha: I don’t understand what’s going on.
Me: (slowly going mad) There’s no such thing as reality tv. Nothing about it is real. They follow them around for 24 hrs and cut the best parts in to one hour and take everything is out of context. Not only that, but then every single one of those people aren’t real. Nothing about them is real. They’re pretending. They’re making up these ridiculous characters that make dumb decisions. They’re putting on airs and wearing silly clothes and doing whatever they can to generate ratings and get the most screen time. It’s just all…. (stops, growing look of horror Carrot’s face)
Nurse: (enters into waiting room) Alpha?
(Alpha leaves, Carrot remains seated)
Me: (whispers to self) Reality tv is larp for non-larpers.
(home audience dead silent, fade to black, cut to car commercial)
Gamma: Mom, how come my school has numbers instead of grades?
Me: (weary sigh) Grade schools like to go with numbers, for some reason. By the time you get to high school, you’ll be back on that whole A, B, C grading system.
Gamma: What’s a GPA?
Me: (tries to remember the words) Grade Point Average. Every letter grade is worth a certain amount of points. As are like 4 and Fs are 0. You add all those points together and divide them by how many classes you took and that’s your average. If you get all As, you have an A average. If you get a mix, you might have only a C average. Its hard to get your grade point up after a certain point because of math.
Gamma: Why do we have GPA?
Me: Well….okay. The way it was taught to me was that you had to get good grades in grade school so you could get into honors classes in high school and get more points on top of your good grades so you had a wicked high GPA so you could apply to colleges and they’d go “Wow! Look at this GPA! I bet they’re really smart!” and they’d let you in so you could get more high grades and put that on your resume and companies would go “Wow! Look at that GPA! They’re really smart, we want them to come work for us!” and that would translate to more money.
(moment of silence)
Me: Which….if you think about it….is really kind of soulless. I want you to get good grades because it means you’re learning and understanding the material. Theoretically. Learn. Learn, learn, learn, never stop learning. Learn to love learning. Read books, watch documentaries, talk to experts. Hell, observe the world and talk to people who’ve sunk thousands of hours into their hobbies. Figure out what you like to do and we’ll go from there and make it work somehow.
(mini van pulls into drop off)
Gamma: I’m going to be a YouTuber.
Me: (disappointed sigh) Maybe something better than a YouTuber.
Gamma: (scathingly) Way to support your own daughter, mom. (Jumps out of van)
Delta: I know what I want to do when I grow up.
Me: Oh yeah?
Delta: Have fun.
Me: Good attitude to have, Delta. Have fun at school.
Delta: And you have the best day of your life, mom.
(Delta exits van, fade to black, cut to car commercial)
