Coffee is the all important morning starter. For many years Mom and Dad always drank Standard Coffee. Judy remembers seeing the Standard Coffee van coming to the house with the deliveries. Standard is still in business selling commercially. Dad switched to Community Coffee, sometime in the 60s, and would order it by the case. Mom says that in Oakdale, Louisiana, the adults had coffee at 8:00, 10:00 and at 2:00. She was always licking the cream from the top of the milk bottle, and denying she had done so, but the cream mustache gave her away. Lately, we have been buying whole beans and Cliff's job on weekends is to grind the beans and make the coffee. Heather, Cliff's niece, had given us a grinder and beans which got us started, but some friends up the road invited us in one Saturday morning for a cup of coffee and we had coffee better than Starbucks. Mike and Anne shared their secret, and we now have to have freshly ground coffee on the weekends.
Mom and Dad always used a drip pot, which consisted of three pieces. When Cliff and I married in 1988 I was still using the drip pots Mom and Dad had given me. First, boil enough water for the coffee and a little extra. While waiting for the water to boil, put the coffee grounds in the middle section, place that on the bottom section, and then put on the top section. The pots used to have lids, but I never used them. Put the pot in a cake pan, on top of the stove. Pour boiling water into the pot, and pour some in the cake pan to keep the coffee warm. As the coffee is slowly dripping through the grounds, butter your toast and warm up the milk for the coffee. The best way to warm up the milk is to put it into a small cream pitcher and place it in the cake pan with the drip pot, in the warm water. Once the coffee is ready, remove the two top pieces and through the grounds away. Enjoy!
While Dad was waiting for the coffee in the morning, he would put a steaming hot wash cloth on his head and walk around the house getting ready for work. This was so he could get his hair to lie down. He usually only had to do this after a visit to Jack Ash, his barber. Dad went to Jack Ash and got a sort of crew cut. Mr. Ash was the barber in Monroe for as long as I can remember; his shop was downtown near the pool hall, I think, on Broad Street.
After about a month of using the drip pot, Cliff introduced me to Mr. Coffee. The drip pot went into the cabinet as strictly an emergency backup.
6 comments:
Love Peaches painting in the background!
Me, too.
Coffee...the stuff of life. I can remember the perculator popping and snorting to beat the band in the mornings when I was young. But my grandmother had lived in Italy and had an electric Italian drip machine that was hourglass shape--which is all I can remember about it. It's long gone, but I often look for one in antique stores. At the time everyone considered it to be quite exotic!
Maybe you could post a picture of Peaches painting? I'd love to see the whole thing :-)
great story, it really brought those memories to life, thanks
Nan, I will put some of Mom's art on the blog!! thanks. I'll ask Susie if she saw any of the Italian drip machines when she lived there...
I'm not sure I trust my memory. It seems odd that it would be a drip machine and be electric but that's what I remember. I'm not sure about the shape, either. Ah, sigh...the old grey memory ain't what it used to be :-(
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