Coffee Break

I'd like to say a few words about caffe italiano. Usually I go to the coffee bar by our appartment or school to have an espresso or cappucino. I made my first pot myself today with one of the silver 3 cup coffee makers they have here. It is about the size of a container of salt and sits on the stove top. The top and bottom unscrew and one puts the water in the bottom with the small coffee ground holder on top. Then the top pot is reattached and the whole thing is heated until the water boils up from the bottom through the grounds to the pot on top. It makes espresso which you may drink black or with sugar in a small espresso cup. If you want milk in it you must swtich to a larger cappucino cup. I like mine with milk though I can't make it foamy at home like they can at the bar. I just add it plain even though its already 14:00 here which is getting late for drinking milk in coffee. Italians do not take milk in caffe after lunch time, which here starts about 13:00. It feels good to hold this cappucino cup of hot coffee on the bench in the kitchen with the light from the window coming in my apartment. I surprised myself by wondering when this cup and saucer became my comfort objects. The 21 years I lived in the United States I have used a saucer maybe 7 times and never without wondering why people bother with it. I think it is because our cups that go with saucers in the US are too big. In my kitchen in Massachusetts our tea set is bigger than anything you would see in Italy. If you hold the saucer to carry the cup it feels like it will tip off. Every day here I carry at least 1, if not 3, cup and saucer combos. The cups are smaller, shorter and rounder. The saucer is the obviously perfect tray for the cup and spoon. The lip of the saucer curves up so my hand fits perfectly between it and the table so I can carry it with ease. It really is a remarkably well shaped object to fit the lifestyle here. A small cup of coffee is taken quickly at the bar before people are on their way somewhere else. Three sips and and you have finished an espresso. Greeting the bartender and thanking him when you are are done is as much part of the tradition as the cup or the spoon or the taste. In America portions are larger and more caffinated but the coffee tastes less like coffee. At Dunkins I can get coffee that tastes like cream, sugar, blueberry, caramel, coconut, the list goes on. Espresso is very small but very strong in taste. A coffee is supposed to last an American through a morning commute or for an hour at work. Maybe thats why its always so hot, so it takes longer to get cold. I've never gotten a coffee at a bar here that is too hot or too cold, always just right to drink quickly and move on. I do miss my to go iced coffees here but not so much now. Having coffee here is a little break time that Americans don't really believe in. It is not long enough to really multitask during and so it becomes just a quick pleasure. In italy that seems to be the requirement with food and drink, one must stop and be totally involved, everything is fresh and made to order in real cups, on real plates. None of this quick frozen burrito, bottle of soda business that happens to me too often in America. As much as I like this tradition I know it will make me a square peg in a round hole when I return to America and eventually I will adapt back, but hopefully not completely. As a person who doesn't plan a lot of non-multitasked time for herself I'd like to thank Italy for teaching me how to stop for a minute to relax. And I'd really like to thank Professor Kirk who taught me how to appreciate how to drink coffee like the Italians do.