Ann Burris, West Sacramento, CA. This is coffee cup 300 (!) so today we get a story with our coffee. Ann is a longtime friend (sounds so much better than an old friend, doesn’t it?) of mine, and blogs about Farmer’s Markets at Annie’s Pickin’s.
“My sister was a real live cowgirl in her younger days. She could ride with the best of them and went on many cattle drives where they drove cattle from the low elevations to the higher mountain pastures in the early summer then reversed the process as the weather cooled in the fall. It would often take days to drive the herd and the cowboys and my sister (who at that time was the wife of one of the cowboys) would camp each night under starlit skies. Mornings were often brisk, as they tend to be in the mountains. The meeting place would be the campfire where everyone would gather around to warm themselves and it was there, sitting around the crackling fire that they would enjoy their morning cup of fresh brewed coffee. Camp coffee was not from a machine and it sure didn’t have foam on top or a fancy name. It was simply coffee grounds that were added to water and boiled in a coffee pot for just the right amount of time, then the pot would be set to the side of the fire to settle the grounds. The coffee was strong and if you got the last cup it was probably a little chewy too, but to each cowboy and girl, it was the best cup of coffee they ever tasted. Mountain air can do that to your thinking I’ve heard.
Years have gone by and my sis isn’t a real live cowgirl anymore. She lives in a small town in a regular house with a lawn out front and a little yard with some trees out in the back. No big fields filled with cows, no creek and no barn, but she does have a magnificent view of the Sierra Nevada Mountains from her front porch and that’s pretty nice.
The other day she called and was very excited because she had just bought a new-fangled coffee machine. “It makes really great coffee and does an amazing job on the foam,”she said. “Great we can try it out when I come up this weekend”, I said. The morning I arrived she fixed us coffee and it was really great, even the foam was great, but to me the neatest thing was the contrast between the really high-tech coffee maker and the homey cups she served it in.
She may have given up the ways of a wrangler many years ago but in her heart she’s still a cowgirl. Only now she’s a cowgirl who likes high-tech lattes.”
