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About What's happening. (Eugene, OR) 1982-1993 | View Entire Issue (June 6, 1985)
CHIPS I by David Koteen 1 Coffee and Crescents When I was growing up I was happy. What is happiness? Let us each define happiness in our own way. At least one reason I was happy is that we used to have milk and toast for breakfast. The milk came from Orbach Farms, the local dairy. It was normal white milk, and I don't remember if it had everything done to it that milk now-a-days does. I drank it down swallow after swallow, my two sisters anxious to start off for school. Also what went with the milk was cinnamon sugar toast. Because my Mother loved us, she would spread the butter on the toast before it ar rived at the table. Which I appreciate more now, I admit, than then. The bread was Pepperidge Farm. All my friends ate Wonder Bread. My Mother said Pepperidge Farm was better for us. I would argue that Wonder Bread improved my body in 12 ways. Did Mother listen? She said that Pepperidge Farm was like what her Mother used to bake. I said that Dad told us kids that her Mother was lazy and never did a lick of work in her whole life. Then my Mother buttoned us off to school, pulling our pants out of our galoshes, so the snow wouldn't get in. Times change. They don't let you drink milk with cinnamon-sugar toast any more. You have to drink coffee with crescents, or, depending in what circles you travel, coffee with croissants. A crescent or croissant is made mostly with flour and butter, and often oil, which coats your mouth and gets all over your hands; it tastes a little like half-cooked french fries. It takes about two hours after eating one to get the grease off your fingers. Also it wants to unwind itself when you try to break off a piece, scattering brown flakes all over the plate, table, lap and floor. If you have the mis fortune of ordering one in a restaurant, it can be embarrassing beyond words. One time I thought I had the croissant problem licked. I dipped it in my coffee and was dreamily guiding it towards my mouth when a spontaneous assault of guffaws burst upon me like a volley of bullets from a firing squad. Apparently, there is a correct form to consuming these crooked little creatures. I retired immediately to the men's room. But many times worse than the moral debase ment of the American breakfast is the omni present problem of coffee. I don't mean the sub stance itself. The beans are cute and have a nice feel in the hand. Very aromatic. Perfect size for slingshots. It's the vast variety of beans you have to choose from that's debilitating. With milk it's pretty much milk. Not that you can put milk into coffee. No way. Half-and-half is what whitens coffee. Fortunate it is indeed for farmers that cows have four teats, so that each can be easily pro grammed for a particular liquid. The reason that some half-and-half's are richer than others is due to the fact that the cream test is towards the back of the udder and most milkers are right handed. So you go to the store, wishing you could buy a quart of milk, and arrive at the aisle set aside for coffees. You phewl I suppose it depends a lot on your ego investment, but I need a good hour to 'make a coffee selection based on some sort of reason (I was taught that the power to dis criminate is what sets us above the lesser primates). Now I don't want to dwell on this, but I do find it disconcerting that none of the coffee is grown in soil of the continental United States! 0%. How can a nation consider itself "free" when its entire population is breakfasting on foreign substances? While I was busily gulping milk back-when, my Mother would be merrily drinking a cup or 2 or 3 of Maxwell House. I used to think she was smiling because the coffee was good to the last drop. Now I realize she was getting totally wired. My own Mother! Anyway, by the time I get to the end of the cof fee aisle, I've usually narrowed it down to 7 or 8, avoiding issues of organically grown, water-proc ess decaffeinated, houseblends, slave wages paid workers, darkness of bean, price per pound. I use no occult science in making my decision. Usually. But to be truthful, when I get down to four or less I do fall back on eeny-meeny-miney-mo. Today, 1985, I refuse to spend so much time in grocery stores making coffee selections. As the gray hairs increase in number on my head, as the Nation falls prey to the pernicious influences of foreign culinary powers, I accept compromise more and more as the ideal. To wit: every month the company I work for removes a coffeesize por tion of my paycheck and places it in a special ac count, called the Lunar Cycle Coffee Account. At the end of the fiscal year, the sum plus interest is returned to me. I then purchase 28 half-pounds of different coffee beans. 28 x 13 (moons) = 364. With one day annually for coffeelessness. On the 28th night—the full moon—I stay up and hand grind 28 white filters full of coffee, using my hair dryer to blow the grinder out before entering each distinct bean-type. I then clothespin every filter to a small line that I have rigged up inside the freezer compartment of my refrigerator. Excessive? Per haps. But in my life, both time and ritual have become important aspects. Sometimes late at night, when the better part of Eugene is asleep, I walk bravely back through the years into that little kitchen where bread was toasted in the broiler of the white, enamel O'Keefe-Merritt gas range. I open the broiler door and take out 2 pieces of Pepperidge Farm toast and let butter melt between them. Mix up a small bowl full of cinnamon-sugar. Seat myself with 12 ounces of milk and chew a few tasty mouthfuls of memory. Each bite is like a year of my life. Each toast slice, a decade. Every swallow of milk—a vote for longer childhoods. But only in the night's darkest hours. At 7:30 AM, I attach $1.50 to my dog's collar and send him off to the bakery for a pair of fresh croissants. The kettle goes on the back burner. I open the freezer door, and momentarily view the trape zoidal line of white coffee filters. Unclothespin ning the one furthest to the left, I prepare to enter, the real, adult world. 1100% Cotton UV ' Get your 9 Tn I T-Shirt for only 88 Pick one up at our office 335 W. 20th, Eugene HURRY! They’re going fast. CLASSIFIEDS COUNTRY COOPERATIVE GARAGE EST 1973 Care & Repair of IOYOI A • DAISCN VOLKSWAGEN • SUBARU A*D DTMLHS WORKER OWNED FEMINIST COLLECTIVE 683-3780 H 3144 W. 11th, Eugene 0 CERTIFIED GUARANTEED WORK Need a good car? 1980 Toyota Corolla. 2-door liftback. $3300. 484-4680. INVESTOR/PARTNER What's Happening would like to expand! We are looking for capital. Small or large investors considered; also work ing or non-working partners. Write: Investor, PO Box 259, Eugene, OR 97440. SATURDAY MARKET is accepting applications for new food booths. Turn your creative cookery to profit. Call 686-8885 or visit Saturday Market for more information. COUPLES, FAMILIES, STEPFAMILIES Competent counseling at reasonable prices. Put aside past discouragements; learn to enjoy your relationships again. Donna Taggart, MS. NCC. Pearl St. Counseling Services, 345-4278. Nurture and love your body. Solve eating problems with caring and expert counseling for overweight, compulsive eating, bulimia, anorexia. Barbara Weinstein. MS. 344-7696. WOMEN'S GROUP Ongoing counseling & support group. Working with feel ings and personal power—addressing Issues of independ ence, relationships, sexuality, separation and divorce, in cest, PMS, the effects of alcoholic parents, and parenting. Gypsy Frankel-Podolsky, MSW, 11 years experience. 485-1449. WOMEN EMERGING! Women's group to begin in early June, Mondays, 7-9. Join us. Lucinda Marvin, MS. NCC, 344-8428 or Non! Aller dice-Gerow, MS, NCC. 686-9824. Mentor by design_ FAMILY MEDIATION SERVICES DO these concern you? • loneliness • Isolation * anger • divorce & custody Issues • alconol-substance use > depression • suicide ... let s Tam Donald Anderson, M.S. — Jo Donald by appointment 10-7 344-9184 Sliding Scale, Reasonable Rates Sublet: July through October. Longer stay possible. 2+ bedroom, 2 blocks from Lauretwood Golf Course. Large corner yard. $350/manth, negotiable. 344-1220. Wanted— Femal to sublet room to historic mansion in wooded setting on Skinner's Butte from mid-June through mid-September. S70 a month includes utilities and phone. Share kitchen, bath, living space with 3 others. Student preferred but please call if this sounds good to you. (For even part of the summer.) 343-4972. JUNE is the month of many occa sions and we have cards for all of them. • FATHER’S DAY • GRADUATION • GOOD LUCK • BON VOYAGE • WEDDING • NEW BABY JABBERWOCKY CARDS • GIFTS _oss W9*** 1308 HILYARD ST. MON-SAT SUN 9:30-6 12-5 484-0530 FRESH LOCAL BEE POLLEN Delicious flavor, only $8.00/lb. Five others at $7.50/lb. Oregon alfalfa honey 72c/lb. Honey Heaven, 949 Pearl. Queen waterbed with space-saving 4-drawer pedestal. $100. Call 345-2625 mornings and evenings. Small flat trailer, $75. 3-speed Schwinn bike, $50. Dead 1950 Chevy pick-up with extras, $150. Echo 24" chain saw. 683-4495. LEARN THE STARS! Accurate and beautiful star map glows in the dark! Each deep blue poster comes with a separate guide to the stars and covers the skies over the U.S. Total cost is $7. To get one, call Larry Deckman at 343-7166 or come by 2406 Lawrence St. in Eugene. 4 m BE/LY6RAMS... 1 by $14754 tBMial, d “evoy7 • a Dtuieet ot & ntmn Got: PARTIES. OFFICE FUN wome Deloony 639-8599 . 4 CLIP & SAVE Focus your personal inner strength on getting what you want out of life. . . • lose weight • stop smoking • manage stress • create new directions Call or write for free brochure. You have the power, I have the tools! 1257 High St. Suite 7, Eugene, OR 97401 484-1969
