Published: May 12, 2008 11:06 pm            

Cathie Shaffer: Caffeine fix still required: 05/13/08

When I was a kid, I used to wonder how my father could drink coffee.

When I was in college, I wondered how he could drink so much coffee.

When I was a young mother, I wondered how he could drink coffee that had been in the pot for hours.

The other evening, as I reheated coffee in the microwave that had been made the night before, I realized I’d finally found something in me that came from my father.

Before I married, I never drank coffee. I was a tea girl. Hot tea, preferably, although I did imbibe in iced tea on hot summer days.

Hubby introduced me to the coffee habit, although I never could drink it black like my parents. I soon discovered that, doctored right with cream and sugar, it was pretty tasty — and it give me a kick tea didn’t possess.

Coffee got me through late study nights in college, rough nights with new babies, sleepy days when the time changed in spring and fall.

It helped me when I worked a summer factory job with a schedule of 12 hours a day, six days a week.

Then the day came when a doctor told me to go caffeine-free. He seemed like a nice guy, not the sadistic type at all. And he had a good reason for suggesting I give up caffeine, suspecting it contributed to muscle spasms I was having in my face.

By then, I’d developed a pattern of alternating my coffee intake with diet cola, guaranteeing a steady supply of caffeine at all times. The doc didn’t bother to tell me that going cold turkey was going to be a miserable experience, and that those nearest and dearest to me might want to duck and run until I was through the process.

Two days into it, I gave up giving up caffeine. Some things are simply not meant to be, and that’s one of them.

This was long before coffee drinking became the thing to do, and before specialty coffee shops became part of our American culture. I was drinking the stuff I learned to brew by watching my mother, back in the days of the old on-the-stove percolator.

Now, of course, coffeemaking is as simple as pouring in water and putting coffee in the brew basket. My favorite coffeemaker allows me to set the strength of the coffee, time the coffeemaker to start before I rise in the morning and shuts off automatically.

For my birthday, my daughter bought me a second coffeemaker. This one brews either one or two cups at a time, delivering the delicious brown nectar into a thermal cup that I can drink from.

A couple of years ago, a coffee shop chain built a store near my house, and I must admit to frequenting when I’m bored or in a hurry. Usually, though, I make a pot of coffee in the morning and reheat it when I get home that night. Enough flavored creamer, some artificial sweetener, and it tastes just dandy.

Some say that the palate becomes more discriminating with age, but I believe it’s opposite. The older I get, the more I become like my dad, apt to settle for a day-old doughnut or leftovers of indiscriminate age — both of which compliment yesterday’s coffee just fine.

CATHIE SHAFFER can be reached at (606) 473-9851.

        

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