have i mentioned that i have a shabbat cup and saucer? it is a brown russel wright cup and saucer and it is only used on saturdays. i don’t know how this started or why, but it is my custom to have my coffee in this cup and saucer on the day we are commanded to set aside.
my coffee enjoyment was not ruined, but was certainly not heightened, by some wispy strings that appeared in my toasted cornbread this morning. at first i feared the worst: that my cornbread had been invaded by spiders small enough to deposit themselves inside the cornbread and quietly walk around dropping their creepy, ethereal ropes behind them all day and all night. while rationally i know this cannot be true given the pattern i saw, the part of my mind that is not ruled by logic tormented me on and off for many hours.
another theory that is much more likely is this. when i baked this last batch, i thought i might not have let one of them (i made 2) cook all the way. so it is possible that the properties did not change in quite the way they should have. perhaps they are protein strands from the eggs that are present. there was something odd about the eggs i put into this recipe anyway, but i can’t go into it because i am very invested in repressing the images. so, something happened.
another thing is that usually i cut the cornbread up and place it in an airtight container, removing pieces on an ad hoc basis. i did not do this, this time. i left the thing in the baking pan covered loosely with aluminum foil.
so there are many reasons for this. but i could not get past the strings that looked like they were spun by silk worms. i threw it out. but the first bite i took corrupted the first, second and third sips of coffee i took irrevocably.
still, the aroma of my coffee was very rich and the visual was stunning. that is, the sight of the coffee grounds mixing with the hot water as i stirred them in the bodum with a wooden chopstick. in our home, chopsticks are for stirring coffee. there is a creamy looking foam that starts to form when the hot water and grounds mingle that makes me very happy.
Filed under: coffee, cornbread, cup, enjoyment, first cup of the day, morning, coffee
