The Effects Of Benign Neglect in Coffee and Gardening

Six months later, I have a kitchen -- but maybe not the mini-farm of my dreams, but I do have a meet-cute and nifty little cocktail idea.

The good news about a garden eaten by pests is that it’s part of an ecosystem.

I mean, that’s what I tell myself.

So far this year, despite grand plans to continue expanding the mini-farm in my urban backyard that sustained us pretty well last year, we’ve had an apocalypse of cucumbers and, well, not much else. Tomatoes are still green on the vine. The corn is growing but late. The chickens used the micro greens as their own personal salad bar, which made for healthier eggs but maybe not healthier garden boxes. At some point, we just gave the broccoli and cauliflower over to the caterpillars.

We do have an abundance of radishes, but nobody likes radishes. We have one watermelon, one carrot, and basil, which has gone well with the cucumber, but only in adult beverages. We had a short-lived love affair with cucumber basil popsicles before the kids realized they liked normal-flavored treats better.

It’s okay. We have a kitchen, which is more than I could say six months ago, when we first moved out to allow contractors to come into fix a floor that the previous refrigerator had flooded after a previous owner decided to learn about plumbing on YouTube.

Needless to say, I did not select a new fridge with a water and ice option. I got one of those nugget ice makers when it went on Amazon Prime Day deal and never looked back. I have Chick-fil-A quality ice and the peace of mind that my refrigerator can make my life miserable in many ways, but it cannot melt from an improperly installed hot water line to my ice maker, as well as an understanding from my husband that he is saving money by making my iced coffees at home.

I have a piece coming out later this week at National Catholic Register about marriage, and its kind of a companion piece, since it was borne from unpacking a kitchen’s worth of junk that’s been hauled from house to house and state to state over the last 15 years. The glasses a wedding guest bought from our registry had to, recently, be put out their misery. The new coffee maker, a massive Breville with a touchscreen that meets all of my personal caffeine-related needs, is the perfect bookend for a landmark anniversary, after all, I was actively prevented from putting a coffee maker on my Macy’s Bridal List.

When we met, we were both in law school. I would arrive at school around 7am most days to study before class, and being the first one there, I’d fill the giant airpots in the little student center. It wasn’t good coffee, but at some point in law school, I was consuming more than five cups of it a day. It was for business, not for pleasure. And everyone drank it. Except one jerk who brought his own personal Caribou Coffee French press mug to school every day to make his own coffee because he was better than the rest of us.

And reader, I married him.

But Mr. French Press continued to cling to his snobbery even into post-marriage cohabitation. Nothing but the French press. No drip coffee, no pour over (granted, the hipster trend had yet to make it to the Chicago suburbs), nothing. And that just wasn’t enough coffee for me. I drank it black out of bowls at the time, not cups with splashes of flavored creamer and cubes of sugar.

He thought it would be enough if he took charge of making the coffee. A husbandly gesture, yes, but it could not overcome the lack of available caffeine.

We made it years into our marriage, complaints about coffee being the most difficult newlywed hurdle, before we finally bought a coffee maker — and even then, it was never an agreed-upon purchase. At Menards one Black Friday, there to get a new toilet (because the toilet was a Black Friday deal, natch), I simply grabbed a $12 Mr. Coffee off a display in the middle of the aisle, and put it in the cart on top of our Japanese, high-flow, ecologically attuned, speciality holiday priced toilet, and no one said a word. We still don’t talk about it, though we’ve now been through at least three coffee makers and two espresso machines since then, but you know it was a monumental moment because I still remember it was $12.

Now, we have something with a touch screen that our kids can use to make on-demand hot chocolate. He’s still in charge of making the coffee, but now it’s by instruction, and it sits right next to a drip coffee maker. And it’s in addition to a Keurig coffee maker that I have in my bathroom — yes, my bathroom — because my kitchen can sometimes seem too far. You should try it. And the advantage of having children is that you can one day have them make the coffee for you when they insist on getting up at the unreasonable hour of 5:30am.

The French press is still there, though. On a shelf. Waiting.

Anyway, I promise I’m tending to the garden again and a kitchen walk-through is coming soon, until then:

Gin and Cucumber Basil Smash

Requires: 8 slices cucumber, 8 leaves basil, 1 TBSP lemon or lime, 2 TBSP simple syrup, 2 oz gin, splash of tonic water, and ice.

Muddle the basil and cucumber in a cocktail shaker until bruised

Add simple syrup, gin, lemon juice, and ice and shake until condensation forms on the outside of your shaker.

Fill a new glass with ice and strain your cocktail into the glass.

Top off with a splash of tonic water.

Garnish with a basil leaf.