I do not have my requisite summer evening glass of wine because I am living in fear of fruit flies. It is cherry tomato and gushy nectarine season in the fruit basket. And yesterday we set out to use our new juicer to stop being so goddamn fat all the time, and then realized that Craigslist giveth, and Craigslist taketh away. Earlier this summer I scored so heavily with Michelle Obama the Yamaha scooter that we used up all our karma and now we have a shitty juicer that puts juice everywhere except in the receptacle. Well, we DID have one until this afternoon when I realized the fruit flies had seized the opportunity to do a condo conversion in the leftover carrot pulp and I promptly threw the whole thing in the garbage.

My shredded index finger (for which I will be suing Microplane, or my mother, or whomever is responsible for getting me into the mess of wanting to grate my own cheese with a torture device) is looking more like science fiction special effect today with its white blood cell activating and antibiotic cream lathering. Did you know that the old school of letting a wound “dry out” is not actually a good idea? My father drilled that into my head- exposing your owies to fresh air was the fastest way to healing. Apparently, airing out promotes cell death, the opposite of what you want to facilitate healthy repairing of damaged tissue and it’s best to keep things under a thick layer of ointment and out of sight. Oh, and scarring. Moisture reduces scarring.

Tomorrow is the first official day that the children belong to me all day. We are beginning the non-vacation part of maternity leave with no backup and no plans in place. I’ll either blow it off and set the oldest down in front of Phineas and Ferb and hand the baby his favorite spatula to gnaw on, or rock it out by getting amped early and journeying to the new Boot and Shoe Service Cafe in the old Cafe DiBartolo space on Oakland’s Grand Ave. Oh how I loved their bougainvillea patio. I hope it has been preserved.

I’m leaning toward the latter. After all, what sort of mother am I if I only educate my eldest about the wonder of coffee (she knew how to grind beans and make a single drip cup by age one, and I am completely serious)? The baby must start toeing the family line eventually.

Here’s a soundtrack for the sun tomorrow. May you all have deliriously happy fruitflies in your wine glasses too.

Finally listen to the newest Grace Potter which I was so excited about I accidentally ordered three separate times.

And try to get someone to take me to Remedy for a scone.

Simple, but worth sacrifice, all.

Filling the top slot for availability and consistent quality for the month of May is Coast Roast Coffee, which comes from the city of Tomales. For those of you non-locals, Tomales is a teeny rolling hill town in an awesomely gorgeous location on the Sonoma Coast. Retail and wholesale, Coast Roast offers a decent eight organic roasts, including a water decaf.

I tend to alternate between the Peruvian and the French Roast, both of which are heartbreakingly great and roasted to their full potential without creeping into smoky territory. The Peruvian has the earthy caramel and deep almond nutty character that I crave, while the French is more restrained and refined but still packs a "good morning" whallop of roasty sweetness.

So every morning while my wife brews a regular old pot of coffee for herself, I turn on the kettle and grind the beans for my single cup. This involves, currently, your basic plastic filter cone pictured here, which fits directly on top of my cup:

There is certainly nothing wrong with this practice.. it's economical and easy to clean since the paper filter one inserts is removed when the coffee is ready, and is just tossed into the compost. A quick rinse on your cone, let it drip dry (and I love mine so much it has a permanent hook on the side of the kitchen cupboard) and you're done!

Or so I thought. Bodum has gone and made a mockery of my little plastic filter cone.

The "Dripper" is made entirely of glass and consists of a jug, and a separate filter cone that seals when pressed onto the base. One would place a filter (this one comes with the pictured gold filter, no pedestrian paper used here) into the cone, add the grinds, pour in the hot water. Once the coffee is made, the filter cone is lifted off and a glass lid seals the heat in so one can enjoy the coffee without having to gulp it down while it's hot.

The lines are intentionally simple, and it seems almost 1940's with its lack of flourish. I really like utilitarian kitchen design items and always worry about how overkitsched things will age with my kitchen. I have fears of someday being surrounded by country bear platters and fleur de lis(es), and wondering how I wandered so far astray.

My friend Rich the Triathlete loves coffee as much as I do but is infinitely more concerned with heat factor. He can't stand to drink warm coffee and wants every sip to be as piping-searing hot as possible (the latte bowls I use for special friends obviously don't go over well with him as they cool the coffee before you can say "good morning"). The Dripper would surely have a fan in Rich and, likely, the rest of us.

It's dishwasher safe, won't absorb the good coffee oils, and is practical, blah blah blah.

I feel again as though I'm finally wearing my fresh pair of Esprit jeans, only to find out they went out of style yesterday.

I am a coffee snob.

Not in the sense that I have to have only single origin beans from Ritual. And certainly not in the sense that I care all that much about whether you use a La Marzocco or a Clover to push some form of water through my grounds. But in the sense that I will “yea” or “nay” a breakfast spot depending on their coffee and will drive long lengths for just-roasted and well roasted beans. In the sense that I know which cafes serve whose espresso. And which lines have better quality versions of their popular roasts.

I moved to Portland, Oregon in the mid-nineties and was exposed firsthand to the burgeoning coffee culture that Seattle now largely gets the credit for. This was before Starbucks had crushed the very heart of what coffeeshops were all about: being epicenters of modern thought and political progress. Ordering of a latte typically still included a preference for “wet” or “dry”, and asking for a single or double (or quad) dictated the size of the beverage, doing away with this small, medium and large nonsense we have today. Asking for a “short pull” was not met with a quizzical expression, but with joy and camaraderie.

I have been infatuated with coffee since age fourteen (oh Yuban, you done me wrong). I have likely kept several farming communities in business with my addiction. Little Buddha, my three year old daughter, has been able to make a single drip cup of coffee from whole beans since she first walked (obviously mommy doing the hot water part).

In my travels, with all the methods of brewing and various skill levels found from San Francisco’s now infamous Bluebottle to the It’s a Grind chain in some podunk suburban strip mall, I find it consistently safe to order a double americano with room for cream. You know, this way, that the grounds haven’t been sitting in water for twenty minutes, extracting every last shade of bitterness into your cup, and you know it hasn’t been sitting on a heater, burning the oils into that lovely post-coffee paste on your tongue. It’s freshly made espresso, with hot water. If the shot is made too long (watery), you won’t notice as you’re adding extra water anyway. You are also circumventing the possibility of their making the shot too short (small) and adding too much water because you’re asking for lots of room. Basically, they can’t mess it up.

This really works most of the time, even in the middle of nowhere (well, as long as they’ve heard of espresso). And when it’s hot, you just order the whole thing over ice as a double iced espresso as the epsresso melts the ice into a perfect iced coffee balance.

There is a little proprietor owned and operated cafe in the desert town of Twentynine Palms, CA that I stopped by long ago on a Southwest road trip. Adhering to the cardinal rule, and as it was 104 degrees outside and my flip flops were melting to the pavement, I ordered the double iced espresso. The owner froze, wide eyed. The put her hand over her mouth and gasped, then her glance darted self-consciously at her espresso machine, as though it might inform her if it were capable of delivering such a thing.

“Well I don’t know if I can… um.. we don’t have..  Wait, what did you ask for?”

“A double iced espresso. You know, like a double espresso, but just poured over ice”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, visibly relieved and relaxed her shoulders. “I thought you said double riced espresso”, she explained earnestly, “and I thought to myself that I haven’t heard of that one yet. I thought maybe that was some new thing from the city and I was thinking that we don’t even have any rice!”

Chuckle still.