Five Years a Writer

I used to make a big deal about my one cup of brewed coffee in the morning. Grind the beans. Heat the cup. Measure out the coffee. Prepare the one-cup drip machine. Set the timer so I wouldn’t miss the coffee at its just-brewed finest. Add cream. Enjoy the full rich deep flavour. Ahhhhhh — now, that’s a good start to the day. Then, after a routine physical checkup, I got my cholesterol numbers back and realized I had to cut back on full-fat eating pleasures, including the 10% cream in my daily coffee. Every little bit helps. Val had already cut back on the full-force caffeine of home-ground beans, exchanging them for a half-and-half mix of instant coffee and a coffee substitute. So I, too, gave up the ground-bean bespoke daily drink with cream for an instant version with a French vanilla flavoured oat-milk creamer. Not so bad. More a coffee beverage than a cup of purist coffee, but satisfactory nonetheless — a whole lot less faff and zero fat. In the days before Covid, my mother would...