Ice Cold Coffee Confrontation

Over the years I've worked my share in coffeehouses. Mainly small mom-n-pop type places, because that's what I prefer. The connection with your customers, the laid back nature of the shop and the interesting people that floated in and out made them, for me, a delightful place to work.

Working in a coffeehouse usually meant early mornings or late night hours. I was young, 19 or so and it didn't bother me a bit...well maybe the early mornings. I would hype myself up on all the caffeine I wanted and get to work on baking scones, cheesecakes, cookies, danishes, quiches and biscotti for the the day. I would then prep the sandwich station, get the brewed coffee brewed and the espresso machine ready for it's day. Then they would come...the customers, my friends, really.

One reason I would love to own my own restaurant, bakery or coffeehouse someday is for that very reason, the people. I loved knowing my customer's orders without them even having to open their mouths. I loved that it brought a look of relief and comfort to their tired faces as they took that first sip of their piping hot dark brew, mocha, or herbal tea. Chatting with them and getting to know them was a joy for me. I loved catering to their specific idiosyncratic coffee requests and finding out what their morning had been like thus far. You learn a lot about a person through their coffee orders.

One day, I went to work. I locked up my beater Dodge Omni (still my favorite car I've ever had) and walked up to the front door. I saw my co-worker just standing there. I asked why they weren't inside and then I saw the note pasted to the door. The coffeehouse was closed...for good. CLOSED! I was truly devastated. I loved that coffeehouse. It was my home away from home and not just for me, but for so many others. It was a sad day.

I worked at another coffeehouse as I cut, permed and colored my way through cosmetology school. It didn't have the same vibe as my previous place of employment, but it paid the bills. I graduated school, married my man and went off to work in a high-end salon.

A few more years went by, we moved to California and I didn't want to take the extra classes and pay the extra money to get my cosmetology license there, so I did hair out of my garage and worked at...(que scary, dramatic music) Starbucks.

Please don't be offended die-hard Starbucks lovers. This is merely a very biased opinion, by a jaded employee. Once you have worked in a small coffeehouse and felt the effects of a nearby Starbucks on your place of business, you grow to dislike it very much. Starbucks was like a giant, storming through your local neighborhood, eating small, privately owned coffeehouse for lunch. You find yourself vowing that you will never work for "the Giant".

But here I was, in my interview making myself available for the "opening shift", which meant I had to be at the store at 4:00 a.m. It was the shift they were hiring for and I needed a job. Like a lion freshly shaved of his mane, I accepted the meager wage and random hours. The hours was murderous. But I did it. Couldn't say I loved that job, not even "like".  I was looking for my happy coffeehouse memories in a corporate caffeine-dispensing factory coffeehouse.

Maybe it was the ridiculously early mornings, maybe it was the crabby, non-conversational customers growling their tedious coffee orders and ignoring my chirpy morning greeting. Maybe it was that my hands continually smelled like coffee and bleach, maybe it was my terribly butch haircut that I gave myself to combat the woes of early morning grooming (worst haircut to date), maybe it was the shift manager that was on me for anything and everything I did- from how I placed a cheese danish in the bakery case to how I ground a bag of beans, it didn't matter. For my every action, she had an immediate and irritating reaction, usually spoken behind my back to another employee within earshot range. Not the brightest girl.

Well, this was back in the day when I was a bit more timid. I didn't stand up for myself, like I would have now. Having children and being married for 11 years makes you bolder, but since I didn't have that experience under my belt yet, I was slow to tell this woman to get off my back...and it festered.

One day the feces hit the fan. I was tired of her putting me down, threatening me with "telling the manager" on me and bringing her foul attitude into the workplace. I was grinding what felt like a 300 pound bag of Sumatra, when she started chatting it up with another employee about me. Again, I could HEAR HER, even over the grinding of the stupid coffee grinder. I started shaking with anger. I don't know if I had ever shook with anger like that before. It was bubbling up. I was bracing myself for the vomit of self-preservation. There was no way I was keeping this down. Not today, not ever. I slammed off the coffee grinder, plopped down the bag, swept up my coffee grind mess and started rolling up the proverbial sleeves and fantasizing what Laura Croft would do to her.

My face was hot and red. I know you should not confront when you are livid, but I felt if I did not, I wouldn't ever do it. I boomed her name, she turned around to face the sweaty-faced, had-it-up-to-here me. I hardly remember what I said, but it flowed, baby. Oh, it flowed. I may have stumbled here and there at the beginning, but after I got going, I felt empowered. The basic message was, "don't treat me like s@&!". I told her that I saw how two-faced she was and how she singled me out. I stood up for the fact that I was an extremely hard worker and no one else had a problem with me. I reminded her that she was but one rank above me and even our store manager with the most power in this coffee-slingin' joint never treated me the way she did. At this point, someone escorted us to the back room because I was lettin' it all hang out in front of the house. Of course, the other employees didn't stop us. They all had it up to here with this woman and they wanted to see it all go down. And it did.

At first she tried to fight back, but her nasty words just bounced off of me like I was Iron Man. Once she realized she couldn't bully me anymore and that I called her bluff; her eyeballs started bulging and she was dumbfounded. She FINALLY shut-up!

After that she was, of course, annoyed. I was relieved. I didn't give a flying fig what she thought. I was freed from her stupidity. She didn't work that next day, which I was glad about, but she showed up anyways. I was less than amused.

I was working my shift, taking orders at the register and she gets into my customer line.What was she doing in my line? Didn't she see that I didn't want to see her, talk to her or take her discounted order? She better not ask me to grind her free bag of coffee beans.

She steps in front of my register. Her face was different. She looked timid, even a little scared. I stared blankly back at her. She quietly asked me if I could talk with her during my 15 minute break. I said I would. I was very curious about her visit.

We sat down outside. I didn't say a word. She looks up at me and with tears in her eyes says, "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be so mean." Then she starts bawling! I was shocked. This brick wall of hurtful words and snide remarks collapsed into a pool of insecurity.  My heart was touched. I felt for her. I felt so bad. She was honest and truthful. She wasn't hiding behind anything. I quickly accepted her apology. I found myself comforting someone I once viewed as my arch-nemesis and loathed. I was humbled by her honesty and her openness about her heartache. We talked a bit more and then she left. After that talk, we weren't what you call "friends", but we respected one another.

Many lessons learned. Growing up in Starbucks...who knew?

With that said, I'm serving up a little drink that I feel encompasses the best and the worst of both above named places. I took my favorite drink, the iced mocha, and mixed it with my favorite syrup that Starbucks used to have, Valencia orange. Together it encompasses the good times and bad, irritating and victorious,  all into one icy cold, caffeine injected, chocolaty, orange-y drink. I like making them at home because it's my way of "stickin' it to the man". I put on my mad scientist cap on and came up with a ratio for the syrup.

Orange Chocolate Syrup

1 part water
2 parts sugar
1 part cocoa powder

So I did this:

1/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
zest of one orange
pinch of salt
dash of vanilla extract

Mix together water, sugar, cocoa and salt and bring to a boil then shut off heat. Add orange zest. Let it steep for 20-30 minutes. Strain. Add vanilla. That's it! As it cools it will thicken. Store it in your frig for weeks.

To make the Iced Mocha:

Note: this is how I prefer it. Adjust according to your tastes.

1/3 cup freshly brewed espresso or strong coffee
5 tbls. orange chocolate syrup
6 oz. milk
enough crushed ice to fill the cup up (Sonic's ice is the best, or Whole Foods crushed ice)
orange slice for garnish

Place syrup and coffee into the glass. Mix the two together, making sure the syrup is well incorporated into the hot coffee. Pour in your milk to fill it approx. 3/4 of the way full. Stir well. Add ice to fill it to the top. Garnish!

P.S. If you would like to vote for my "Just for the Halibut: Alaska Seafood Post" click here to go to the page with all the listed entries. Click on my post and buzz it! The dish with the most buzzes wins. You do have to sign up with Foodbuzz.com to create an account to vote. Don't worry, it's super easy. Thanks for all your support! If I win, I get to go to San Francisico for a weekend!

Have a great weekend, Foodies!

Something's Rank in Denmark

Okay, not really, not that I know of anyway,  I just happen to love Shakespeare and Hamlet is my favorite play of his. The drama unfolds in Denmark and as much as I am Italian, I'm Danish as well.  It just makes sense. (I know, your going, "huh?"...just roll with it) Anyway, when something stinks, the above title is usually my response to whatever it is. It's a complete paraphrasing of a couple lines from the play, so don't quote me. This time around I had to say it in my head and do some deductive reasoning.

So Food-sters, (like my new name for you? I seem to be into naming everything lately.) if you are by nature squeamish about poop or talking about it, do not continue on. I'm going to talk about UN-appetizing things this post, but surprisingly it's still about food! It's always about food, really...except maybe for the Bump-it episode, no, wait, there was something about chowing down on crap food, if memory serves me right.

Moms and Dads, you will be able to relate especially well to this story. Not-yet parents you will too, because inevitably everyone has encountered a nasty diaper at one time or another.

We were in the waiting room. With 3 toddlers, your always in a waiting room for something. I find it's my home away from home, so when we go, I pack big. I've got an arsenal of snacks, drinks, enough diapers for a small country of babies, wipes, natural antibacterial hand spray (it's made of thyme oil! who knew? Whole Foods is where you can get it), extra underwear (for the 3 year olds), extra clothes, usually an over-ripe banana stuck in the side pocket, phone, business cards, toothpicks with tea-tree oil, trash, stickers, my wallet, camera, Epi-pen, Benedryl, ibuprofen and my journal with a handful of Sharpies...of course. Don't know why I felt so compelled to share the entire list, but I certainly feel much better now that I did.

This is the bag I affectionately call "The Pit".

We do the usual wait time and thankfully, this particular waiting room is awesome. Movies, tons of play stuff and other kids to play with. The toddlers are toddling and Tiny is teetering. He's trying to keep up with his brother, but he looks more like Frankenstein that's had one too many margaritas. So freakin' cute. I see a lot of moms sitting and staring blankly at their iPhones the whole time and I'm sitting there staring at my kids, to make sure they don't eat some one's half eaten toasted O off of the floor, shove a piece of trash up their nose or steal an unsuspecting baby's snack. When ever I try to be cool and hip and look like I'm busy on my phone, something always happens, so I rarely do it anymore. I gave that up and now I'm elbowing kids out of the play kitchen and fighting a 4 year old for the metal strainer. She knows nothing about pappardelle.  Once a foodie, always a foodie.

We were wrapping things up and it was time to leave. I was chatting with one of the women that works there and all of a sudden there was a wafting of something. You know when you get a whiff of "something" and it comes and goes so suddenly that you dismiss it? That's what it was the first couple of times and I thought someone had just "cut the cheese", as it were. You know kids, always rippin' 'em, wherever, whenever. No biggie.

Then this smell became fouler, ranker, nay, straight-up wretched. I was now looking around, trying not to look to obvious, but really wanting to know where it was coming from. It was growing like a big shadow on the wall, like in an old black and white horror movie. It was slowly encompassing the entire waiting room. It got so bad that I actually stopped the conversation with my friend and started calling my kids over to me one by one.

I went first to the youngest as he's the most apt to pooping his pants. I pick him up, holding him like a piece of lumber and peek into the leg of his diaper. Clear. I call over my other two, really not expecting to see anything, because they don't poop in their underwear anymore (thank God!). I check both of them and they were clear too. Hmmmph. All the while my friend is looking at me a little confused. For our entire conversation, I've had my face contorted and sniffing the air like Bambi's mother and it was not for a human with a gun but a human with a dump. I was dumbfounded. I just figured that somebody else's kid pooped their pants and we tried to continue the conversation.

She finally acknowledged the now-overwhelming smell. Okay, now this is where I'm going to get kinda gross. One must always define a smell when telling a stinky smell story, it's absolutely paramount. What it smelled like was a mixture of airplane toilet, rotten fish and death.

My friend goes into the office to grab me a handout on something and when she comes back out, she's surrounded by an aura of revelation. That smell, that horrid smell was some body's lunch being microwaved into a gastronomical version of the atomic bomb. Oh my! I gasped as she told me. The mystery was solved and I was even more confused than before.

It never occurred to me in the slightest that it was FOOD! I've smelled many a dishes over the years, but obviously not enough. As far as poo goes, I'm the queen. I've see it, smelled it, cleaned it all...trust me. Regardless of my poop qualifications and love of food, I still would have guessed it was the result of a bodily function not culinary chaos. If I was dangling over a cliff by my eyelashes and had to answer the question: Is this a poo smell or a food smell? I would surely plummet to my death.

So we meandered off the beaten path today. Yes, it involved food, what kind I have no idea. I truly hope it tasted better than it smelled for the sake of the consumer.

Some days we just have to do something different.

Cheers my dears!