Godliness Is Next To Cleanliness
So, you're a dirty little pot user! I know you're out there, hiding at your desk in your
home office or reading the paper at the breakfast table. Completely oblivious to the travesty that is your dirty
coffee maker. How could you treat your beans so cruelly, how could you taint an experience that is parallel to
wine drinking. Come on, would you pour a vintage white into a dirty glass? I say nay!
I'm Jack's urge to clean. Jack's got a thing for perfection, the problem being that Jack
is also a tad lazy. However, this does not invalidate Jack's urge for clean tasting coffee. There comes a time,
usually a week or two that I need's to clean the coffee maker. Call it anal, call it obsessive, hell call it a
dirty coffee maker. Do it make a difference? Yuppers monkey boy. Coffee leaves plenty of oils on the plastic
surfaces and on the glass pot itself. These oils go stale and that affects the flavour of your coffee.
What should be done?
I am Jack's instruction manual. If you could be so kind to turn to the care and
maintenance section of the instruction booklet that came with your coffee maker. What? You don't know where
it is? Did you even read it? I hope for your sake you at least cleaned the pot before you used it the first time.
So, here's how it goes coffee hounds, 8 easy steps:
1. Check to see if your coffee maker is dirty. If you use it once a day, its best to clean it weekly.
2. Run a full pot of half vinegar/half water through your coffee maker. You can repeat this step
if you like, but its recommended you use a new batch of cold water and vinegar.
3. Run clean cold water through the pot. Repeat until vinegar smell fades. Usually 3 or 4 times.
4. Clean filter basket with soapy water. Might be an idea to let it soak.
5. Clean pot with soapy water. (Let soak optional)
6. Clean pot lid. Don't forget this step. The lid picks up a lot of oils.
7. Clean the water reservoir. Clean cloth, to get any water deposit build up.
8. Clean Exterior of coffee maker.
9. (Not really a step) Once a year, run some CLR through it to get rid of lime build up in the internal piping.
That's it. 8 easy steps to cleaning your coffee maker. It might have a bit of bite left from the vinegar for the first few pots, but that will go away. You could just cycle more clean water through it if you want, but lets not get crazy. Some recommend filling your coffee pot with soapy water in between your brew cycles. Just leave it sitting next to the sink, so you can rinse it at moments notice to brew up a new batch. Jack thinks that's a bit of overkill, but then, Jack can barely get up that hill.
Suffice it to say, you must clean your coffee maker for the best coffee. Do it at least twice a month, if not once a week. The best part is...your coffee maker will love you for it, and it'll last longer too. What do you have to loose? A bit of bacteria maybe?
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Random Musings Of Mild Misanthropy
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O Bodum, where art thou?
O, revered and mellifluous Muse of Poetry, whose nature be the lyric
of the soul's music: aid and assist me in keeping my words in truth
with my experiences past, and make me a good and truthful raconteur.
For may Poseidon drown me in his salty waters, good reader, if I
speak one word of a lie in what I bring to you by recounting this,
the epic story of a man's long and hazardous odyssey home from
retail Bodum shopping.
So I smashed up my coffee decanter a few weeks ago because I'm a
clumsy, ham-handed retard, and figured I'd go and buy a
Bodum in the meantime to enjoy some yummy pressed coffee. (I
was having a tough time finding a shop close by that sells
replacement decanters for my ten year old Braun 12-cup friend.)
It's always good to have a variety of
coffee-making devices, and nothing motivates my ass more than
the necessity for a fresh batch of the Java.
I had seen Bodums all over the place and even bought one as a
gift a couple of years ago, so I expected a prompt, painless
procurement & purchase of said apparatus. How wrong I was.
Before I continue, I'd like to draw small attention to what I
call my fucking gift. (Not to be confused with
my fucking gift which is best left to the confines
of the boudoir or empty museums.) You see, I seem to have this
strange attraction to things odd and unlikely: a dozen people
suddenly appear out of nowhere and line up in front of me
as soon as I step near a check-out in a store. My size of
clothing (or any specific product) will be completely sold out
while there is an overstock of all other items. Things go on
sale a minute after I buy them. I can sit in my driveway getting
ready to go somewhere and not a single car will drive down the
tiny side street I live on until I decide to pull out; then
it's the goddamn Trans-Canada Highway. Giant, puffy dead crows
mysteriously appear on my lawn
[see CoffeeClub, Oct. 12/2000].
Newcomers into my special little world are awed speechless by
what they see, but I've been suffering these cruel teasings
by the gods of rat-bastardry for my entire life and I'm rather
used to it. But my search for a Bodum was utterly ridiculous,
even by my standards. Good one, evil & vindictive gods!
It started innocently enough, as do all tales of bloody killing
sprees or road trips spawned from risky robberies or elopings
of forbidden passions. I needed a freakin' coffee and I needed
it now. And so, I embarked on a (slightly) remarkable journey.
Just up the road is the local Second Cup coffee shop.
They had a coffee press there, but it was selling for around sixty
bucks. Now, the last time I bought a Bodum, it cost a couple
of tenners and came with some coasters and some nice little mugs.
I've also seen single, Bodum-brand presses for around fifteen bucks.
"No really, how much is it?" I asked the guy working the counter.
Sixty bucks. I told him I'd give him twenty bucks right now to
look the other way while I strolled out of the store with it.
I mean, c'mon, that's like three hours' salary after taxes.
He either really liked his job or was some kind of
religious "stealing is bad" freak or thought I was joking.
Either way, I wasn't going to get a fucking Bodum here.
So I left.
Next stop: another Second Cup store down the road. This was
pretty sweet: they had no Bodum type things to be seen anywhere.
When asked, the counter girl didn't even know what we were talking
about. "Bow-dumm? Wha??? Umm..... I just get coffee... look, I'm
wearing black nail polish... wheehee!"
Fortunately, some guy in the lineup overheard and suggested Starbucks.
So I left.
I hate Starbucks. They are muthafuckas. But now I reeeeally
wanted to make coffee, so in search of a Starbucks I went. Incidentally,
can you believe that on Yonge street in Richmond Hill, of all places,
there are no Starbucks'? Good freakin' lord! I guess that's a
good thing. (Also, can you believe that on Yonge street
in Richmond Hill, there's nowhere you can buy a fucking tub of sour
cream after midnight on a Saturday night? But that's another story...)
Anyway, I figured the good old Indigo Book store may have them in their
trendy little housewares section. After a short drive and a browse around,
there was no sign of a coffee press. That and the suspicious absence of
Gowan from the Canadian Wall of Fame suggested things were not
meant to be that night. So I left.
The search resumed the next day, when it was figured that on the
shoppe-filled Danforth in Toronto I could surely find a reasonably
priced Bodum. Allow me to summarize: five stores & shops later,
nothing under thirty bucks (and that was for some cheap-assed plastic
one in a lovely hue of prostitute-red). Nothing, nothing, nothing,
nothing and nothing. Gee, what a surprise! So I left.
By this time, it was not about the Bodum: it was about justice. By now,
I had spent enough time and gasoline, probably, that any press I bought
would be worth about a hundred bucks. Now, I simply deserved the best
cup of coffee that anybody has ever drank. It was owed to me, and
b'gosh & b'gum, I was gonna get it.
It was time to hit the big department stores. A visit to
some giant housewares shop just south of Bloor on Yonge street showed some
promise: there was a halfway decent Bodum look-alike press for twenty bucks.
But of course, there were no new ones, only that display model, but it
was the closest I had come so far and was a definite contender. Decision:
come back here after a quick trip to check the giant Bay department
store up the street. However, after trying to leave and being snippily and
curtly told by "the help" - the Cyclops to my Ulysses - "Oh, you can't
leave that way -pause - sigh- you'll have to exit at the other end
of the store?", her voice rising like it was a goddamn question.
Oh. Excuse me, you spatula-peddling, frigid cunting bitch. God forbid
I should try to go out the fucking door I came in through.
That would just be foolish to assume; it makes much more sense
to trudge through aisles of white plastic utensilry to go out the back
door, into an alley. Asshole. I need a coffee. So I left.
Here, the fates kicked it up a notch and threw down cold rain as I ran
across the street to The Bay. Way up on the sixth floor (of six
floors, of course) was the housewares section where there was a nice
selection of Bodums. Now get this: they were all milk-frothing Bodums.
I think there was one regular Bodum, but it was a snazzy chrome dealio
whut cost around fifty bucks. Just then, there was a little
*snap* sound in my head, followed by giddy glockenspiel music
that only I could hear. My eyesight was replaced by a lucid vision
of the entrance to a friendly green forest surrounded by sunny fields of
violets and goldenrod where a fluffy bunny was kissing a smiling turtle
with a thought bubble above its head that read:
"Let's be friends forever!"
Twenty minutes later, I snapped out of it. I stood up and was ready to go,
when, one aisle over, a plethora of replacement decanters for ten year old
Braun 12-cup coffee makers beamed at me. Priced at a measly twenty bucks.
I picked the nicest, squarest box from the shelf and cradled it in my
loving arms, being ever so careful to protect its delicate fontanel.
I escalated down to the ground floor where the cosmetics department lives.
All the staff were frou-frouing with each other and nobody noticed as
I walked right out of there with my little baby. And so I left.
The rain had stopped, and all was fine with the world again; I was home.
I was home.
Epilogue : I have since purchased
a shiny new Bodum set from eBay wonderland for $12 dollars. In your FACE,
evil fate gods! BOO-YA!
Farewell until next time, gentle reader. Do come back again and feel
free to send me your comments, suggestions, stories, whatever.
Gotta go, the coffee's on.
" And I still haven't found what I'm looking for. "
Edward Pants, Esq.
In life's coffee bag, be the bitter bean.
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Jill's Lesson
Jill would like to take this opportunity to thank all the major coffee conglomerates
for hiring apple cheeked fresh faced very young boys to be baristas.
Thank you thank you thank you.
Just a bag of beans. That's all this senorita wanted. The strongest, filthiest,
dirtiest bag of beans that she could get her hot little hands on. She sauntered into the local Second Cup
on a hot afternoon and wended her way to the back where the beans are stored. A very young boy with downy
peach fuzz on his face and pretty blond locks greeted her. His voice was surprisingly deep and rough.
"I need a pound of beans," I told him. "The strongest you've got."
"So are you just looking for a little kick?" He looked directly into Jill's eyes.
"Something to get you going?"
This boy barista is a pusher man. "I'm already going honey. I just want really strong
coffee. How about that Columbian.?"
"Actually, if you want the strongest coffee, you should go for the lowest numbered
coffees. The flavored ones, for instance."
"Get the fuck out of here," Jill squealed. "I thought the highest numbers referred
to the amount of caffeine in the coffee."
"Actually, the number indicates the strength of the roast. And the more times beans
have been roasted, the less caffeine they will contain. And that's what we learned in our comprehensive Second
Cup training." He flexed his little boy arms pointing to the beans on the top shelf. Let me say this about a
young boys arms. You know how you boys feel about the smooth thighs of a private school girl peeking from
beneath her kilt? That's how we all feel about the hard arms of a high school boy. It's a sweet sweet thing.
"Well, in that case, I'll take a pound of Dutch Chocolate. Yum."
Jill busied herself watching this boy's butt as he climbed the little step stool to
obtain the beans, and the deft work his fingers made in scooping and pouring the beans into a slick new bag.
"Do you want them ground?" He asked innocently.
"Honey, I grind my own." Jill leaned in close to his pearlescent ear. "With my thighs"
she whispered. The boy gulped and nervously handed Jill her shiny new bag of filthy strong delicious beans.
Visible beads of sweat stood out on his adolescent forehead. Jill brushed her fingers against his palm.
"Bye bye sweetie," Jill breathed in his ear and rubbed the toe of one black shoe slowly
up his uniformed leg. Then she sauntered back out the way she came, leaving the barista boy in a convulsing heap
upon the floor. Jill has that effect on boys.
So what did Jill learn, aside from the fact that it is always fun to flirt with young
boys? Apparently, Columbian and Viennese are not as strong as she thought. Whether or not this is true bears
further study. But if this is indeed so, count on Jill to drink nothing but girly flavored coffees from here on in.
Sweet dreams, you naughty young monkeys.
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Can You Write?
We'd like to extend an invitation to anyone for coffee inspired writings. It don't have to be lots of
words, just take a look at how much we write.
If you are interested, and would like to contribute
some of your rantings and ravings, please send it in.
Send to:
jack@coffeeclubonline.com
Jill's Magazine Reviews
We've all been intellectually horrified and secretly thrilled at the
proliferation of magazine stands in our coffee houses.
This is why Jill has bravely volunteered to wade through the sea of rags to
select for you, her sweetest monkeys, those magazines worth wasting an eye flicker upon.
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