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Perk. 33 and 1/3 percent more perk.

Best I could come up with. The Perk coffee pot photo seems to be unavailable.

There is one place I’ll consider drinking coffee out of a percolator. Well, maybe two places but the second place is generally the basement of a church, somewhere, and let’s not discuss that any more.


The one place is the lake, or as we know it, The Lake. The Lake is Christina Lake, just north of the Canada/US border above Spokane, Washington. My in-laws have a cabin at Christina. It is a lovely spot, and it is boat access and decidedly off-grid. On a good day I’ll have 2 bars of LTE cell service which is just enough to be incredibly maddening when trying to pick up email or do a blog post. We have propane for a fridge and a water heater and we have a lovely set of deep cycle batteries and solar panels that require near-constant attention.


The coffee has been a source of great discussion, as one might reasonably expect – and as evidenced by other posts on this blog. We have a stove-top espresso machine, a Moka pot, which makes a decent cup of coffee. Aeropress is in regular use – always good coffee there – and there is the perk pot from, oh, the 1960s? Maybe the 1970s. This is my mother-in-law’s coffee world and she makes the perk coffee. In fact, there is even an extra pot in reserve lest something untowards happen to the pot in regular rotation. Woe betide the fool who decides to move to a different coffee option. Well, I’m still alive, but I think it’s noteworthy to point out that the perk pot is still in constant use and there is, literally, a collection of other, unused coffee options in the cupboard. All have been tried, and all have failed. Only the Corningware option remains. Shelly would probably have something pithy to say about that, “Look on my coffee options, ye mighty and despair!!”

Percolator pots are annoying and time consuming. They have to be watched as if you were boiling an egg. Bring to the boil, wait 7 minutes, enjoy! But it is boiling the coffee and having it drip through the grounds. Not my first choice for coffee…

But enjoy we do. Well, my older daughter was complaining it was a bit watery, but her young taste buds just need some mellowing.

What would barely pass muster in any other environment is rather tasty at the lake. My mother would insist it’s the water we use and she may well have a point. But I think that there is some coffee magic in this place. Makes every cup taste better, even the coffee made the old fashioned way.

Unless we try the coffee left from the year before. No amount of wizardry will allow that to pass muster.

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Moka.

Slowly… Slowly…

One of the many coffee options at the lake. The Bialetti Moka pot makes a great cup of coffee, but it does take a fair amount of work. Strange how often that dichotomy appears in life, let alone in food preparation.

The idea is rather ingenious. Water in the bottom is forced up through coffee grounds when it comes to the boil. It goes up through a stack on the top and collects in the upper chamber. It’s a perk pot where the water only passes through the grounds once, as opposed to continuously, for 7 minutes.

The base is rather small and it takes forever and a day to boil the water in there. So one needs a kettle to get the water scalding hot before the contraption is assembled. As a consequence, a towel to keep your hands from burning is a must, as is a way to keep the funnel of coffee upright before it goes into the base. I should do a video on how this all fits together.

Story of my coffee life. I always seem to make everything more complicated. Makes for great coffee, but there is a real dance to it all.

That said, the results are worth the effort. Lovely, strong espresso-like coffee. I mix it with hot milk and it is great.

I often take it down to the dock and enjoy it in the sun – except for today, where the clouds are stubbornly keeping the sun at bay. There are all these spots of blue sky but none seem to be able to find their way in front of the sun. Oh well, it’ll happen soon enough. Any time now. Waiting. Ahhhhhh. Much better.

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Arugula.

It was on the pizza, and it was oh so tasty.

My mother-in-law has this vegetable garden. I built her some raised beds a few years back. When I say ‘I’ what I mean is there was a crack team involving my brother-in-law who can actually build things and myself, doing a lot of the ‘support’ work. Like hauling seemingly endless yards of dirt.

My mother-in-law fills them with the most amazing collection of produce.

Including Arugula. It grows rather slowly in those boxes we built, but she has lots of room and as a consequence there is plenty to go around. Over the last few days it has been on pizza, in several salads and eaten straight. It has a lovely, soft flavour. What is even more galling, from a fellow gardener’s point of view, is that she has plants that are volunteers from the year before. And that arugula is amazing as well. I struggle to get anything going in my garden.

The produce is nothing like what you would get in a box. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with buying arugula from a store. In fact, I find it incredible that they can pick it, wash it, package it and move it hundreds of miles and it’s still fresh. But I do wonder if they grow a varietal that’s is prone to last, rather than taste good. Or I wonder if sitting in a truck for a few days would take the edge off of pretty much everything.

Regardless, it is amazing how much better it tastes fresh from the garden. I feel very lucky that we have access to it. And to her, too. My mother-in-law is a lovely woman. Her daughter is nice, too.

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These aren’t like Grandpas. Nothing personal, dad.

A truly ugly photo of the raw ingredients.

My dad makes the best mashed potatoes. When he comes for dinner and mashed potatoes are on the menu, he is deputized to do the work. My children insist.

He does it with aplomb, and uses only the most basic ingredients. I’m always trying to get him to put in some white pepper or sour cream… He just uses a bit of butter, some milk and maybe a pinch of salt.

No gooeyness, no lumps, it’s amazing how he can get them just right. Much as I try to compete, I’m always outgunned. But in the hierarchy of mashing potatoes, at least I’m ahead of my siblings. I remember a story about my younger brother, mashing potatoes with a hammer, as he didn’t have a proper masher. Apparently the pot was saved only because he had overcooked the potatoes and a protective layer of starch had been cooked to the bottom of the pot. Lucky guy. I understand they weren’t much good, but the tools do make a difference.

Here’s the irony. Well, maybe not an irony, per se, but an interesting situation. I hate to tell too many tales, but when I was a kid my mom would rice potatoes for us. She would boil them up and then put them in a ricer (basically a huge garlic press) and we would then have this dry, nearly unpalatable mound on the plate, along with whatever was being served that evening.

We would beg for mashed potatoes. My mother would refuse, insisting that mashed potatoes were, ‘denatured’. And then she would remind us that in Ireland they had a potato ricer mounted to the countertop in some homes. As if, somehow, that made any difference to me wanting mashed potatoes. It wasn’t my fault the Irish have strange kitchen conventions.

I remember, even as a young kid, thinking that some academic level mind-bending was going on here. For goodness’ sake! It’s almost the same thing. And then once we slathered them in butter it really made no difference.

But alas, it was not to be. The best potato masher in the family had his skills ignored for years. They were brought out only at holiday meals when the extended family – those for whom mashed potatoes were a regular table occurrence – had us over for turkey dinner. It was only later that I guess my mom had her Damascene moment and allowed mashed spuds at the family table again. I wasn’t around to see it, but I do remember being served mashed potatoes at their house one day and thinking to myself that an earth-shattering moment had happened. I just wish I had been around to witness it.

Regardless, the net effect was just fine with me and my kids, as my dad hadn’t lost any of his skills in those fallow years.

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