1/21/12 RETRO ALL THE WAY!

FRIDAY NIGHT AT THE STEAK PIT...

...RETRO DECOR

AT LAST, A DECENT CUP OF COFFEE!

Saturday, 8:00 AM.  0 degrees F., wind WSW, calm.  The sky is mostly clear with some clouds moving in from the W, and the barometer predicts snow but it will have to become much more humid for it to amount to much.
        The Friday Night Fish Fry being alive and well in northern Wisconsin, Joan and I went to The Steak Pit restaurant in Washburn for the same last night, and had incredibly good walleyed-pike.  The Steak Pit is a very nice, mid-priced restaurant on the lake.  It has a kind of '60’s retro feel which we like very much, with excellent service.
        I have discovered I am on the cutting edge of something, after all.  Coffee pots. Yes, coffee pots.  Joan has pointed out that several of the high powered cooking shows she watches have my new coffee pot on the set.  You may or may not remember my diatribes over the last several years concerning modern drip coffee pots, that are expensive technological nightmares that never seem to last very long, and worst of all make an insipid,  lukewarm brew that needs designer brands of coffee to taste like anything.  I abandoned that kind of coffee maker several years ago and then tried expensive electric percolators, old, new and everything in between and they too proved unsatisfactory, sometimes making a good cup of coffee but the perk often pooping out due to a bad electric cord or an un-replaceable, worn out heat element. 
        I longed for the olden days, when the percolator sat on the stove un-tethered to an electrical outlet, the strength and heat of the coffee determined by the hand of the maker at the stove.  Unfortunately, such simple percolators seem to be no longer available except as cheap camp coffee pots.  So that’s what I bought, for $8.00 at Wal-Mart.  It works as I anticipated, and it is not very particular as to brand or expense of the coffee, almost any pre-ground type will suffice.  So I fill the pot with water and coffee before going to bed, set it on the burner, and upon rising I turn the stove burner on to medium, set the microwave timer for twenty minutes, and at the sound of the beep turn it down to low and I have a piping hot, satisfying cup of Joe whenever I please, all morning long. 
        So goodbye to complicated, expensive coffee technology and designer roasts! I am a happy coffee drinker again.  The only fly in the ointment (or rather coffee) is that the pot is Chinese made and of course the hinge on the pot lid is already broken.  However, it’s manufacture is a technology our industries should be able to master if they can get the Environmental Impact Statement approved, and I await an improved American model, hopefully with the addition of the old glass bubble on top so one can actually see the coffee perking.  We also ought to be able to produce a more audible, powerful, pleasant perk, as of yore. I’d like a perking sound reminiscent of my old Chevy V8 with the mellow dual mufflers, and the pot  should have lots of chrome.  Ah, those were  Happy Days!