Coffee: Homegrown, Home-dipped.

Remember, back when I talked about the coffee tree blooming?

So, it bloomed beautifully...and survived the wild botanical mistreatment of our move and then it started making coffee cherries! Really! I couldn't believe it. I was so proud. This  stalwart little tree, valiantly blossoming and fruiting here in the chaos of an urban home in Connecticut. That's guts, right?

As soon as Planty (he has a name) started to fruit out A and I began plotting what we'd do with the coffee. We're not big coffee drinkers and it was sure to be an infinitesimal amount of beans anyway. We considered just eating the cherries by themselves to see what coffee in-the-raw was like and decided we felt badly about not going further with our hard-won produce. And then a brilliant idea hit me! Chocolate covered coffee beans. Genius. A small amount was ideal, it highlighted the little nuggets beautifully and it would be a genuine experience to take it from tree to table. The other hidden bonus was of course that chocolate covered coffee beans can easily be packed up and fly across the ocean to be shared with Miq and Penny, the tree's rightful owners.

And that is how I found myself finishing the process, this afternoon and looking proudly at the first homegrown coffee beans, hand-dipped in quality dark chocolate....that I have ever known. There is something cool about making a thing yourself, however silly the quest may be.

Here's how it worked:

First we picked the ripe, red cherries.

Then we peeled off the skin (which we found were sweet when we couldn't resist tasting them), and put the beans themselves to soak and ferment in a little water.

They soaked for about 3 days. Every day or so I poured off the water and added fresh and rubbed the beans to encourage the pulp to drift off and leave the seeds bare. Somewhere in there, the seeds began to separate and I found that each cherry contains two seeds, their flat bellies sweetly pressed together. You learn new things, every time the sun comes up. Once the seeds were feeling pretty clean, I rubbed them smooth and free of all fleshy bits and gave them one more good rinse under the faucet.

Next I stoked a fire in the fireplace and got out the vintage popcorn popper that I found at an estate sale this summer.

Once the fire had created some nice coals I put all the beans into the cage and rattled them over the coals for a good long time, checking periodically to see how they were coming. Eventually, they started to smell nicely: a great toasting, roasting aroma that I can still smell hanging in the house. Not too long after, they were finished. I think we might have taken some of them a bit farther than we wanted but hey....a dark roast is more European, right?

I let the beans cool and melted some dark chocolate. Once the chocolate was a shining, wet puddle of sweet I was ready to do the final dip. Each bean took a swim in the cocoa bowl and then was dripped out onto a wax paper sheet where they cooled and became...our very first crop of homegrown chocolate covered coffee beans. So, so cool.

Miq and Penny, watch your mailbox!

Adventures In Zero Oil

We have been running, running, running....wildly, panickedly...our lists fluttering from our back pockets while we stamp out fires and buzz in a labyrinth of manic circles. And then sometime this weekend we remembered to check our oil tank and ordered another round for delivery on Monday morning and then wondered aloud to each other, "Just exactly how serious is that ominous 0 where the needle is hovering?"

Heh. Heh. Heh. And again I say, heh.

Late last night, after dinner was over and the washing up in full swing we began to notice it was oddly chill in the house suddenly. And by the time we were ready for bed we were huddled in blankets in the living room, crammed as tightly together as possible for body heat and I had drunk two full mugs of tea, not bothering with the sugar or cream but just gulping quickly.

We set the space heater up in the boy's room, put an extra layer on the baby, unrolled another quilt for our bed and tucked in. And I swear that there was starting to be frost hovering in the air over our pillows as we switched out the light.

When you wake up in the morning and there is no heat in your house and it is January and you're having a cold snap with a foot of snow on the ground...you have to find a warm place so that the kids can flow from pajamas to clothing to breakfast in relative calm. I lit a fire in the fireplace, dressed kids in front of the bedroom space heater (sweaters, jeans, t-shirts, turtlenecks, sweatshirts, hats etc.) and then plopped the big boys in front of the crackly blaze with blankets while I strapped the baby to my back in a carrier and whipped up breakfast and another mug of tea.

Later as we all ate our breakfast together and we watched the coals settling and snapping as the logs burnt away I thought of my mother as a new bride, watching her dishes shatter from freezing suddenly in her new house without a furnace, or proper doors and walls, just an inefficient woodstove and a lot of hope. Made our pink fingertips and noses seem  quite bear-able. I like to think I would have made a good pioneer woman but truly, I am so kidding myself. I'm soft. I am so glad that the oil man came this afternoon and that right now,  the radiator next to me is kicking it out for all it's worth. I really like automatic heat.

In Case of Fire

Just in case there was a fire....its good to keep these sorts of practical lists on hand, so that I could quickly dash to the computer, comb through old blog posts and tick off the "necessities" as the smoke curled around my toes. Perhaps humming a little Baloo as I went:?

Here's what matters in my house:

59 Things To Keep…..

1. Of course the dear people I live with.  A and the boys would be the first thing I’d ever choose
2. My tattered Spanish/English dictionary I won in a writing contest.
3. The boys baby books
4. My wooden cheesebox full of sentimental goods
5. My ancient cassette tape of Kirby Snively music
6. The photograph of me as a bride hanging on our bedroom wall
7. …oh heck, and the one on my dresser of A and I looking happily into each other’s eyes too!
8. My copy of Joy of Cooking (wedding gift from Mama)
9. The heirloom gold ring that was willed to me at my birth by a great uncle
10. The soft blue t-shirt I’ve had since I was seven
11. My Gourmet cookbook , a gift from my mother-in-law. (Thanks Mum!)
12. My guitar…and Reuben’s too
13. My Spanish/English Bible
14. My antique Alcott collection
15. The earrings I wore in my wedding
16. The Christmas ornament Papa made for me one year. A clear circle with a my parents log house scrimshawed into it
17. The broken, heart-shaped gold locket with red flowers etched into it that my parents gave me when I turned 13 that I will still find a way to get repaired someday!
18. My sketchbooks, paintings, paints and brushes
19. My sewing box
20. My Eureka handvac
21. An orchid or two
22. My wall paint color palette book
23. The tattered rose quilt I made with my grandma on her ancient sewing machine
24. My box of seeds
25. My copy of Mrs. Appleyard’s Year
26. Some washable markers (The two year old would be infinitely happier)
27. The “Garden Bed” perfume A bought me at a little shop in Brooklyn
28. A tube of mascara
29. My bottle of Trader Joe’s Tahitian vanilla extract
30. The digital camera
31. The cedar lined chest Papa made me as a wedding gift.
32. My little wooden rolling pin
33. The bird’s nest attached to a small branch that I’ve toted along through three or four houses now
34. My demitasse spoons (So useful! You have no idea!)
35. My journals
36. The mini teapot my sister bought me when I got married
37. The photos and videos of my children’s births
38. The glass edged dessert plate with strawberries that my grandma gave me when I married
39. My crystal cake pedestal
40.  The ribbon bound bundle of letters A wrote me while we were dating
41. The fake bust of a girl I bought in Meijer as a newlywed
42. My little cream pitcher
43. The end table my grandpa made
44. My engagement ring and wedding band…first real diamond I ever owned.
45. The plastic grocery bag of quilt bits in purple and green satin I’ve been s.l.o.w.l.y hand-sewing since high school.
46. My copies of Milne’s collected Winnie-the-Pooh stories and poetry
47. My gold and black "Cleopatra" formal
48. My character shoes
49. The photo I have of my grandparents, from when my grandpa could walk (he was eventually quadriplegic)
50. The tiny, olive colored, cashmere baby booties I knitted for Ru while I was pregnant
51. My violin
52. My giant recipe binder, full of clear pages containing loads and loads of recipe snippets I have collected through the years including: my stand-by bread recipe, my freezer jam recipe and the sacred Armstrong cheesecake instructions.
53. The delicate amethyst earrings and necklace A gave me a couple of years ago for my birthday
54. The pair of old, pale green, glass lanterns that I mean to hang together in our house someday
55. My farmhouse tea kettle
56. My grandpa's paintings (I own two)
57. Plantie....Miq and Penny's glossy leaved coffee tree I'm babysitting
58. A few prisms from the chandelier over our dining room table
59. The little marble bust of Abraham Lincoln that I found in a thrift store